Why we no longer appear in Google natural search results?

Google's official stance is that they are "roughly equivalent" and recommends to do what is technically simpler to implement (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk). With that said, I'd recommend a directory over a subdomain. Doing this consolidates signals to a single domain, which should then theoretically build more authority for all pages off of that single domain. This consolidation of authority results in rank increases, which have been documented here: http://moz.com/community/q/moz-s-official-stance-on-subdomain-vs-subfolder-does-it-need-updating. A subdomain would split signals from the blog and the rest of the root domain content. So while Google "says" they're roughly equivalent, SEOs have seen tangible evidence that sticking to a single domain can be beneficial. If you're able to go with www.iconery.com/editorial/, I'd choose that. Hope this helps!

The cost of SEO depends a great deal on three things: 1) The specific services being offered (SEO, social media, content strategy, etc.) 2) The degree in which those services will be implemented (how many hours per month) 3) the skill and experience level of the SEOs involved. $800/month is a pretty small investment if you consider all the layers to making a web marketing campaign successful. My company will usually not touch any fully-managed web marketing campaign for less than $1500/month and that's at the low end of the aggressiveness meter even for a pretty basic site. A larger ecommerce site might start around $5K and go up from there. Overall, you want to look for value and results. You'll want to know how long the SEO has been in business and when looking at proposals you need to understand the amount of time the company will be investing in the campaign. You also want to spell out your goals and establish the expectations on how/when those goals will be achieved. When the SEO and client don't have the same expectations, that can lead to issues later on. But if you know what the goals are you can both be on the same page from the start.

We work with one of the big cruise sites in the UK and it's all about making the site deserve to rank higher by continually improving the site via design & content. Google wants to rank popular sites so you need to (as Simon points out) figure out ways of getting influential sites to talk about you and link to you. PR is the only real way to build links these days.

Hi there - There are two parts to the answer. First, it's very important to have a site map that is both current and does not have any URLs in it that return a status code other than a 200. Even 301 redirected URLs should not be in there. Also, the site map should not have more than 50,000 URLs. If it has more, then create multiple site maps and list them in an index site map. Second, site maps are a great way to get content *discovered*, but they won't necessarily rank well. You need the URLs to also be easily discoverable on your site through internal linking. I hope this helps. Feel free to book a call with me if you'd like to discuss more. John

Neither domain name option is a very good idea. I'll explain why in a second, but first I'll answer your actual question. Although there might arguably be some slight advantage in having an exact-match domain of the form Name.TLD as opposed to a domain with additional keywords alongside the name, that advantage is probably negligible. Google algorithm updates, as I understand them, withhold that exact-match-domain advantage until a website has many other reinforcing signals of authority. (Their goal has been to downgrade spammy, low-quality websites.) Whichever domain version you might choose, Google will find the brand name CUJO mentioned all over your actual website and in the referring links. Those signals will be plenty for search engines to pick up on and hence plenty for SEO, and I'd expect them to overshadow the tiny difference between the 2 domains. Your choice shouldn't be based on SEO. Stop trying to please search engines, and start paying attention to your actual human audience. Really, your decision ought to be made based on the memorability and first impression of the domains. Is the extra keyword in .COM better than a name without that extra keyword in .IO? For humans, that is. Either way, you'll run into competition from CUJO.com. And that's a potential problem. Another problem would be pronunciation ambiguity. Spanish and English speakers will see the name very differently, based on that "J". Spelling isn't altogether clear either – Koojo, Kujo, Coojo, Cujo? The main problem I see, however, is that Cujo is a murderous dog in a Stephen King novel. Since most searches for Cujo will aim at that meaning, your site will be perceived by Google as usually irrelevant in comparison with searchers' intentions. And that doesn't help SEO.