BohnStudios

Sorry I thought I figured this out for you, but I'm out of time. I saw that you were using jsfiddle...don't know what that is. Here is the code that you can fiddle with and I believe you can find the solution in here by making an IE exception. GOOD LUCK! /* UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, DO NOT CHANGE THE FOLLOWING RULES */ .easy-accordion h2{margin:0px 0 20px 0;padding:0;font-size:1.6em;} .easy-accordion{display:block;position:relative;overflow:hidden;padding:0;margin:0} .easy-accordion dt,.easy-accordion dd{margin:0;padding:0} .easy-accordion dt,.easy-accordion dd{position:absolute} .easy-accordion dt{margin-bottom:0;margin-left:0;z-index:5;/* Safari */ -webkit-transform: rotate(-90deg); /* Firefox */ -moz-transform: rotate(-90deg);-moz-transform-origin: 20px 0px; /* Internet Explorer */ filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=3);cursor:pointer;} .easy-accordion dd{z-index:1;opacity:0;overflow:hidden} .easy-accordion dd.active{opacity:1;} .easy-accordion dd.no-more-active{z-index:2;opacity:1} .easy-accordion dd.active{z-index:3} .easy-accordion dd.plus{z-index:4} .easy-accordion .slide-number{position:absolute;bottom:0;left:10px;font-weight:normal;font-size:1.1em;/* Safari */ -webkit-transform: rotate(90deg); /* Firefox */ -moz-transform: rotate(90deg); /* Internet Explorer */ filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=1);}

First off, I've built lots of websites for clients that have CMS....many different types: php, asp, off-the-shelf, open-source, custom, etc. Some situations it's great and a good fit, others it can lead to huge financial disaster for the business if they have invested a lot of money into developing professional content. For some cases you are right, but I do not believe that what you said is a rule of thumb by any means. For example, I write the content for many of my clients' websites - doing SEO for them. For many clients I work with, it would take them much longer for them to learn how to use, let's say Joomla, than it has for them to send me their "content." Keep in mind, this is for some types of businesses that I work for...not all. A pub that has new events every week on a calendar...then sure a CMS is great for that. Or, a company that has professional writers, then sure a CMS is great. I have seen som websites and SEO campaigns innocently screwed up because a "client" had direct control of their content. I have even seen people lose their jobs over it. It's really not cool when that happens. In one case I saw a client lose a search result that was generating tens of thousands of dollars for them - just because they heard that it was a good idea to type keywords over and over again and make it white text on a white background....just one example I could list dozens of similar CMS problems just from what I've seen. Another situation, the client deleted pages and named them differently without using 301 redirects....that one basically ended up costing the company over a million dollars in their marketing budget. Obviously, there are lots of different scenarios where CMS is good and where CMS is not so good. The point is that there is no rule of thumb and every "client" has different needs, budget, and business models. I'd also like to point out that most clients don't know anything about information architecture or how to make their information accessible. They usually know little about keyword tagging, alt tags, internal linking etc etc. They also commonly upload photos that are like 2mb when they only need to be 15kb optimized. So, if it is an important website where I am ultimately responsible anyways then what is the best call? I often have to go back and clean up the mess anyways. It's all relative to the type of business, the CMS you intend to use and the staff that the business has working for them. In cases where having a CMS is right for a client though, I think that Macromedia was on the right track over 10 years ago when they originally made "Contribute", an FTP based CMS. Similar technology has since come a long way since and as far as CMS goes, those types of programs are the only off-the-shelf programs that a person can actually sit down and start using right away. Joomla sucks, Drupal is even worse and although Wordpress is the easiest to use of the three "big dawgs" I think it still has a long way to go in terms of user-interface design. I'm just basing this on my opinion and experience. There is no one-size fits all. You don't give someone who is not a professional writer the ability to screw up a lucrative revenue stream - just like you don't give a 6 year kid the keys to a truck to go drive into a tree. It's all relative to each individual client, so I have to disagree with you.

You make some very good and logical points. However, from a competitive SEO standpoint, particularly for high volume keywords, there are some things I recommend taking into consideration... Phone numbers for businesses are included in Google Maps/Local/Places. Additionally, this is where your sitelinks can come into play. For example, having a "contact" page in your sitelinks is one way to achieve this...at least how Google seems to prefer. Also, if you put your phone number in all of your descriptions it is possible to get tagged for duplication in Google Webmaster Tools. Keep in mind that some of these things are relative to the keywords being typed by the user. Google also manipulates your descriptions based on the keywords being used. For example, if the user searches for "MusicCorp phone number" then Google will often manipulate the description anyways to include the number or Google will bring up the sitelinks and/or the Google Maps info for that specific business search. It can, and often does, grab text from the body of the page being listed. This is what Google Shopping Results were designed for. Search for "guitars" on Google.... A very competitive search phrase I might add. When I searched this keyword, "Guitars" from my location, there is not a single "regular" search result (that uses meta description) on the first page that has a price listed. However, on the "shopping results" you will see prices, but this is of course separate from meta descriptions we speak of. If you know the name of the business, then google places/maps listing for the business should appear and/or the sitelinks with their contact link. I absolutely agree with you that CTA's can and should be part of a business website and it is a more appropriate place for CTA, as I mentioned in "banners" being one of the appropriate places for a call-to-action...banners that can apply for 3rd party advertisers on a website, or, for the website owner's products/services.

Just in case you send emails to US businesses, here is an overview of the applicable laws: http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

You can offer to guest-blog on other websites that get a lot of traffic. You write a little bit of content for them in exchange for a link back to your website...everybody wins.

You could check out Google Adsense. Banners at the top of the page usually have the highest click-through-rate.

Basecamp for your project management and Blinksale for your billing/invoicing. They integrate together. That's what I use and I have found that it is a good combo for small teams.

A CTA for a TV commercial - SURE...A CTA for a Meta Description - NO. I respectfully must disagree with you. The only scenario that I can think of where a CTA would be appropriate(and not hurt you with Google) is if that particular page was dedicated to a promotion that required an action from the user...even then "promotion" or a similar word would probably need to be in the keyword...that's all still a BIG maybe in my opinion and I would stay faaaarrrr away from call-to-actions in meta descriptions and keep those CTA's for banner ads, opt-in email marketing and TV commercials. SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY...click here, come and get it....you can't miss this deal! Do very much of that and you are going to flirt with being black-balled...in my opinion

Why not? It saves me time. More time to drink a pint after work is done. Proportionately, I don't think it's a lot for SEO on larger sites...fixing typos, improving internal links, improving a paragraph here and there. As far as I know, Google likes fresh, updated content that is improved over time. Are there any ways that updating 20 pages in one go could hurt my sites? Is it possible that Google could see the file mod times, for example if I "save all" at one time after I make my updates....that could look like automation (just pictured a robot-version of myself...ah how useful a Robo Ron would be...that would be one handsome machine if I might say lol). Any other possible down-sides that this could cause?

I agree 100% with rallport. I will add that if you have a page that shows up in search results for multiple keywords, Google can have different descriptions for the same page, depending on the keyword that is being searched.

I am in the US. I found this site ( webdesignerforum.co.uk ) when searching for "web design forum" from the US. It was #3 at the time. If there are not geographic identifiers (keywords, ie: London or USA or San Francisco etc) in the keywords being searched, then you should show up in English language search results for your English language content. I hope I understood your question correctly.

Webmaster Tools is highly recommended. Any pages that you want indexed in Google, you should put them in your sitemap.xml file and submit that through Google Webmaster Tools also. When you first submit your sitemap through GWT it will say how many url's you have submitted. Once they are indexed, Google will say within your GWT panel that they are indexed. Just in case, sitemaps.org is where you can check out info on sitemaps that Google prefers/accepts. The current url for Webmaster Tools is google.com/webmastertools

Your meta descriptions can change depending on the combination of keywords / phrases to find a particular page. If Google deems that text located in the middle of your page is better for that particular key word the page is showing up for, but is not in your meta description, then it can disregard your meta description and use that text within the body of your page. In other words, yes, Google can and will manipulate your descriptions if it thinks it will make their search results better for its users. There are likely several different ways this can happen...you're situation is just one. For example, if your page has a good click-through-rate (CTR) with the old meta description, and, when people click to your site, they spend a lot of time on that page, then it is very possible Google might not see a need to change it because according to the stats, the users are getting what they need.

Could you please explain what are lies? That's a big claim so I kindly ask you to back it up with solid information. Thanks!

Google Analytics is now in real time. I noticed it started working solid on my account since around February 2012.