Baggy

We have a site which is heavily optimised for a specific geographic area and it does OK. We now wish to expand into other locations but are unsure of how best to do this. We prefer not to have to buy new domains and create new sites for each location, particularly because this would mean a lot more copy writing to make each site different. It would also seem that we will have great problems with Google Maps (Google+ or whatever they call it now), as there won't be physical addresses at all new locations. Any/all advice on how we can best move forwards, will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your observations, it will certainly help me to do some (basic) work myself but would much rather find the 'right' professional help if possible.

Recently we were advised that having our site designed in WordPress would make it more 'Google Friendly' and help it appear higher in search results - I'm begining to question this - any comments? Whilst I understand somethings about SEO it remains largely a mystery and I would really like to find a firm or individual(s) who are good at SEO and have total integrity. We have had very poor outcomes in the past from trying various 'people' and I've become very sceptical. It would be marvellous if anyone here could recommend someone, having had very good experience(s) themselves or know others who have had good results. Can anyone advise please? I don't know if this site allows PM's but if so, that might be the best (most discreet) way to answer my second question?

Thanks for the replies.

I don't know if this is the correct place to ask these questions - forgive me if it isn't. 1. Is it important (or relevant) to have a UK based website hosted in the UK? 2. Can anyone recommend a good Hosting company please? We currently have a site constructed and managed in WordPress, which has been moved to be hosted by 123Reg and the WordPress Dashboard often stalls or crashes. The person who did the bulk of the design for us says it's a bandwidth issue but 123Reg don't seem to care! Time to move on?

Thanks for the responses. I don't believe I expressed myself clearly enough - I would like to find someone to do this work for us, rather than try to do it all myself. I have achieved some modest success but it is clear to me that it needs a lot more knowledge/expertise than I have, to make any significant progress with SEO. If our sites cannot be 'made' to achieve good results in the search engines, we are left with paying through Google Adwords, which gets rather expensive. It occurs to me that it might be better economics to pay an expert to improve our organic rankings rather than continue to sink money into Adwords. Hence my earlier questions - who/where? Any thoughts folks?

Can I re-open this with another related question please? (if it should be posted fresh or elsewhere please put me straight) I am keen to try SEO on a couple of our sites to boost their traffic in the short-term (hopefully), whilst continuing to work on organic improvements over the longer term. However, we have had our fingers burned more than once with our websites and I wish to avoid a repeat experience with SEO. Can anyone suggest how/where we find a) genuine competence (i.e. proven track record) and fair value? Any/all advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks for the replies folks - appreciated. I recognise that Google doesn't look at keywords any more (or so they say), yet everything one reads about SEO still refers to keywords, so I think we ignore them at our peril. However, Beedev's comment about duplication is of some concern. As I mentioned, in the cms we can set a page name (title) and page title prefix (description) for each page but not keywords, which are site-wide. As Yahoo, MSN (Bing) and others still use keywords, I guess this will be limiting. Anyway, I am working on getting Directory Site listings where I can, as these are the only feasible links in the short-term for a new site. We will see how the rankings go over time. Thanks again for the input.

I hope this is an appropriate place to ask this question:- We have recently had a new site designed for us, as it required php and I have no knowledge of that and didn't have time to learn just now. Part of the arrangement was that we would have a CMS to allow us to work on/develop the site. To be honest, I'm not much impressed by the CMS but can manage with it (just) but one aspect does concern me. The CMS only provides limited access to the meta data. The Description and Keywords are on a site-wide basis not on a per page basis. Only the Title can be set for each page. I am concerned that this will impede SEO and limit what can be achieved in that respect. The designer says not but I'm not convinced. I appreciate this site is about web design and not SEO but I thought this is a design-related question. Would anyone be prepared to express an opinion please?

Unfortunately, the site we are now using is held by a third party who provide the hosting and provide all the templates/designs. As a result, we don't have full ftp access so cannot save the .js files(s) or access the header code. Although we can see the code for some of the site, a lot of the important stuff is not accessible. I guess the lack of total control is a trade-off for the functionality we gain in terms of design flexibility and the cms. I am going to have to re-think this one to see if there's a way of presenting small articles without them having to occupy a full (dedicated) page. Ideas/suggestions are welcome. Thanks for the help folks.

Carmen007 - appreciate your comment but I want to try it (not live) to see how it looks/works and then decide. Virtual - I have downloaded it - no instructions (sadly). I have created a hidden page to experiment but it's not working right. The >>more and < I should add that the site I'm trying to use this in has a CMS, which might be having some effect?

Ben, thanks, I like the 'show me more' particularly now it's got the 'less' button - http://www.stunicholls.com/various/more.html However, I'm not at all sure how to install/use it though, can you/someone kindly tell me where I can find instructions please?

Stef, thanks for your response. I know a lot of people are anti pop-up, but I feel really uncomfortable having a web page with very little content - just doesn't look right. When you say 'just have the article appear in the main window', what do you mean please? Are you referring to something like Accordian?

Thanks, that looks like a possible solution, I will have a thorough read about it. much obliged.

I've been having a look around and quite like the way this works : http://sandbox.leigeber.com/tinybox/ Would this or something like it do what I want?