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Why Companies Are Investing in SEO During the Economic Downturn

Posted by randfish on Nov 30, 2008

Posted by randfish

There's no two ways about it - SEO is hot again. In the last 6 weeks, SEOmoz has received a higher than normal volume of requests for consulting. Alongside that, we've been getting calls from venture capital firms out of the blue - seven to date - asking either about investments they're considering in the SEO sphere (and requesting insight) or literally asking whether SEOmoz would like to take more capital to grow (post about that coming soon). And it's not just us. The jobs and contracts section of the Marketplace has been humming in November, and anecdotal conversations with other SEO firms tell me there's quite a bit of business to be had for both in-house and external SEOs. Online sales, according to Paypal, were up 34% this year over last - another sign that web commerce is a safe haven for those in need of ROI.

Why? What makes SEO more attractive in a down market? While I can't say for certain, I'll ennumerate the most common explanations and motivations I've heard and perceived:

1. The Web Outperforms Other Sales Channel
   When organizations look at the paths leading to sales and income (a critical analysis whenever budgets are under scrutiny), the web almost always comes out with one of two assessments. Either, it's a leading sales channel (especially from an ROI perspective) or it's deemed to be an area with the greatest opportunity for growth. In both scenarios, web marketing and, in correlation, SEO, takes center stage.
2. It's the Right Time to Re-Tool
   Established companies frequently use down cycles as a chance to focus attention inward and analyze themselves. Consequently, there's a spike in website redesigns and SEO along with it.
3. Paid Search Drives Interest in SEO
   Paid search spending is still reaching all-time highs, and when companies evaluate the cost and value, there's a nagging little voice saying "70%+ of the clicks don't even happen in the ads; use SEO."
4. SEO is Losing its Stigma
   Google is releasing SEO guides, Microsoft and Yahoo! both have in-house SEO departments and the "SEO is BS" crowd have lost a little of their swagger and a lot of their arguments. No surprise - solid evidence trumps wishful thinking, especially when times are tough.
5. Marketing Departments are in a Brainstorming Cycle
   A high percentage of companies are asking the big questions - "how do we get new customers?" and "what avenues still offer opportunity?" Whenever that happens, SEO is bound to show up near the top of the "to be investigated" pile.
6. Search Traffic Will Be Relatively Unscathed by the Market
   Sales might drop, conversion rates might falter a bit but raw search traffic isn't going anywhere. A recession doesn't mean that people stop searching the web, and with broadband adoption rates, Internet penetration and searches per users consistently rising, search is no fad - it's here for the long haul.
7. Web Budgets are Being Re-Assesed
   We've all seen the news about display advertising falling considerably - that can only happen when managers meet to discuss how to address budget concerns. Get 10 Internet marketing managers into rooms with their teams and at least 4 or 5 are bound to discuss SEO and how they can grab that "free" traffic. 
8. Someone Finally Looked at the Web Analytics
   It's sad, but true. When a downturn arrives or panic sets in, someone, maybe the first someone in a long time, checks the web analytics to see where revenue is still coming in. Not surprisingly, search engine referrals with their exceptional targeting and intent-matching are ranking high on the list.

I'd love to hear your experiences - have you seen an uptick in buzz about SEO? Has your agency, consulting practice or company taken a renewed interest in the subject? Why?

p.s. For a dose of delicious irony, check out this list of the Top 100 blogs for software development managers. Notice how there are no SEO or SEO-related blogs? And yet, they're using SEO metrics alongside the list! I'd complain, but then again, as long as web developers aren't paying attention to or learning SEO, consultants, agencies and in-house SEOs will always have a job.

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How To Actually Get Links From Your Linkbait

Posted by Tom_C on Nov 27, 2008

Posted by Tom_C

I like talking about link building - it is, after all, one of the most important rankings factors (hey Rand, when's that going to be updated?) and also one of the things people struggle with the most in the SEO industry. So here are some more tips and tricks you can use to get links. This week I'm talking about how to actually get links from your linkbait.

For anyone that's launched linkbait you'll know that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Of course, by 'works' I'm talking about a digg homepage, a reddit homepage or huge amounts of traffic from stumble. But actually even for the pieces which don't go hot on one of the social news sites there's still massive potential - after all the content is no less appealing right? This is still highly linkable content, you just need to go about putting some elbow grease in to get the links. This image is supposed to represent elbow grease, or that women are much better linkers than men, or something equally random:


1. Submit to niche social media sites

Ok, ok - I know I said this post was about how to get links AFTER submitting to social media sites but actually this is a very important step in launching linkbait and getting links. Don't just stop with Digg, Reddit and Su - look at niche social media sites as well. By submitting to these sites not only do you increase the chances that it will go hot on one of these sites (and hence spread and hence get links) but also a lot of these sites provide nonofo links (nonofo being our internal term for clean non-no-followed links) so they're valuable in their own right too.

Don't know where to start? Here are a few ideas:

• Jane's list of 30 quality social media sites to submit to
• 120 social media sites with PR
• A categorised list of niche social media sites

It's worth bearing in mind here that while these niche sites won't send as much traffic as Digg or Reddit the quality of traffic is MUCH better - the visitors will almost certainly stick around longer, be more likely to comment and probably more likely to link too (though this is un-tested). Incidentally, does anyone know of any studies into this?

As an aside, don't forget foreign language social media sites, especially if your linkbait is visual. Both Wykop.pl and Szanalmas.hu have sent us considerable traffic in the past.

2. Ask for links. Seriously.

This point is actually the real reason I wanted to write the post, the other ideas are just fleshing the post out so it's not really short (shhh - don't tell anyone!) and is something we've been doing which is proving very effective at the moment. The concept is simple - once you've created and launched your linkbait use it to manually build links by contacting people who might be interested in your content and ask if they'd like to link to you.

This works especially well when you craft your linkbait correctly - we had success a while back when we launched a video explaining bittorrent for a client, the video was cutsie and fun but it neatly explained the concept of what a bittorrent was. Then we did a search for bittorrent faq and voila - we have a list of relevant people who are actually interested in our video and could easily embed and/or link to it.

Another example - we recently launched a quiz about beds and dust mites. It didn't do terribly well on digg or reddit but it transpires that there's a really big dust mite community online (who would have thought!?) and since we have real content to offer bloggers we're having success simply asking relevant bloggers if they'll take the quiz and link to us. We've only just started manually building links off the back of the quiz but we're seeing good results already - for example this very nice gentleman has linked to us!

While there was no money changed hands for this link you could equally be more aggressive about getting links and pay for people to link to your linkbait as well, but I won't delve into that whole can of worms here as it's been discussed elsewhere a lot and it's not really the focus of this post.

3. Email chains

Back when I used to work in a large corporate office (a far cry from the 14 of us at Distilled!) there were constantly emails flying back and forth among staff with headlines like "Oh My God FUNNY. PLEASE READ" or "SEND THIS TO FIVE FRIENDS OR YOUR KIDNEYS WILL SUFFER DEATH". I used to hate those people. I really did. Thankfully, it's several years later and I've just about managed to weed out all those kinds of people from my social circle and I very rarely get sent these kind of chain emails. Still, the market for them hasn't decreased. They can be a very valuable way of helping your content spread - sure these people aren't always going to link to you but the number of visits it can drive is sickening. So next time you're launching linkbait, why not get back in touch with THAT person in your life and send them an "OMG FUNNY, TAKE THIS QUIZ" email.

As an added bonus for this post, I've also uploaded my SMX London presentation on Blow Your Mind link building techniques which you can view online. It's light on content but there's hopefully some useful tips in there:


Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques

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Footer Link Optimization for Search Engines & User Experience

Posted by randfish on Nov 26, 2008

Posted by randfish

Site after site that I visit lately has been showing a tendency for using footer links to run their internal SEO link structure and anchor text optimization. While this practice, in years past, held value, today I rarely ever recommend it (and yes, SEOmoz itself will be moving away from using our footer for category links soon). Here's why:

1. Footer links may be devalued by search engines automatically
   Check out the evidence - Yahoo! says they may devalue footer links, Bill Slawski uncovers patents suggesting the same and anecdotal evidence suggests Google might do this (or go further) as well. Needless to say, if you want to make sure your links are passing maximum value, it's wise to avoid the footer (particularly the footer class itself).
2. Footer links are often not the first link on the page to a URL
   Since we know that the first link on a page is the one whose anchor text counts, and footer links, while anchor text optimized, are often a second link to an already-linked-to target, they are likely not to have the desired impact.
3. Footer links get very low CTR
   Naturally, since they're some of the least visible links on a webpage, they receive very little traffic. Thus, if algorithms like BrowseRank or other traffic metrics start to play a role in search rankings, footers are unlikely to have a positive impact.
4. Footer links often take a page beyond a healthy link total
   Many pages that already have 80-100 links on the page are going to lose out when they add a footer with another 30-50 links embedded. The link juice passed per link will go down and the value of each individual link is lowered.
5. Footer links can be a time suck
   The time you spend crafting the perfect link structure in the footers could be put towards more optimal link structures throughout the site's navigation and cross-linking from content, serving both users and engines better.

That's not to say I don't suggest doing a good job with your footers. Many sites, large and small, will continue to use the footer as a resource for link placement and, just as with all other SEO tactics that fade, it does carry some residual value. Let's walk through a few examples of both good and bad to get a sense for what works:

Thumbs Up: Shopper.Cnet.com

I like the organization, the clear layout, the visibility and the fact that they've distinguished (through straight HTML links vs. drop downs) which links deserve to pass link juice and ranking value. I'm also impressed that I actually see a "Paris Hilton" link in the footer yet am not completely unaccepting of the idea that it could be there entirely naturally, simply as a result of what's popular on CBS.

Thumbs Down: Hawaii-Aloha.com

These are my least favorite kinds of footers. The links are just squashed together, the focus is obviously on anchor text, not relevance, the links are hard to see and read and there's little thought given to users. The links don't even look necessarily clickable until you hover.

Thumbs Up: VIPRealtyInfo.com

When I searched for "Dallas Condos", I was sure I'd find some examples for thumbs down, which is why I was so thrilled to find VIPRealtyInfo, a clearly competitive site in a tough SEO market doing a lot of things right. Yeah, there's some reasonable optimization in the anchor text, but it's definitely not overboard and the links are useful to people and search engines. The visual layout and design quality gives it an extra boost, too - something that can't be overstated in importance when it comes to potential manual reviews by the engines.

Thumbs Down: ABoardCertifiedPlasticSurgeonResource.com

The site's done a great job with design - it's really quite an attractive layout and color scheme. The links in the "most popular regions" aren't that bad; it's really the number of them that makes me worried. If they'd stuck to one column, I think they'd easily pass a manual review and pass good link juice (rather than spreading it out with so many links in addition to everything else on the page). The part that really sent me over the edge though was the two sentences in the green box, laden with links I didn't even realize were there until I hovered. Technically, there's nothing violating the search guidelines, but I wouldn't put it past the engines to come up with smart ways to devalue links like these, particularly when their focus is so clearly on anchor text, not user value.

Thumbs Up: Food.Yahoo.com

Again - great organization, good crosslinking (remaining relatively relevant then branching out to other network properties) and solid design. Even the most aggressive of the links, on the right hand side, appear natural and valuable to users, making it hard for an engine to argue they shouldn't pass full value.

Thumbs Sideways: DeviantArt.com

 It's huge - seriously big. And while it's valuable for users and even contains some interesting content, it's not really accomplishing the job of a footer - it's more like a giant permanent content block on the site. The arrow that lets you close it is a good feature, and the design is soild, too. However, the link value really isn't there and the potential for big blocks of duplicate content across the site makes me a bit nervous, too.

So what can we take away from these analyses? A few general footer-for-SEO rules of thumb:

• Don't overstuff keywords in anchor text
• Make the links relevant and useful
• Organize links intelligently - don't just throw them into a big list
• Cross-linking is OK, just do it naturally (and in a way that a manual review could believe it's not solely for SEO purposes)
• Be smart about nofollows - nearly every footer on the web has a few links that don't need to be followed so think about whether your terms of service and legal pages really require the link juice you're sending
• Make your footers look good and function well for users to avoid being labeled "manipulative" during a quality rater's review

What's your take on footers for SEO, and how do you use them or avoid them?

p.s. If you're thinking about footers from a layout and design perspective, check out Matt's older (but still good) post on 19 Gorgeous Website Footers.

p.p.s. Happy Thanksgiving! This year, I'm thankful for (among many other things) Danny's awesome post calling out spam and manipulation in the engines (and Google's responses, too).

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7 Good Twitter Monetization Strategies (and 7 that Suck)

Posted by randfish on Nov 25, 2008

Posted by randfish

I've been getting into Twitter (under my usual moniker - randfish) more and more over time (despite only following a few friends and family), and lately, its been weighing on me that the service, despite its brilliance, rapid adoption and passionate fanbase, isn't yet pursuing revenue. That's OK - I think they probably have lots of very smart, talented, experience people thinking about the problem and probably taking action to prepare for it. However, I thought it might be fun to brainstorm some concepts publicly and recruit the smart SEO crowd to pitch in.

First off, here's the ideas I'd toss - I don't think they make good sense. Thumbs down to:

1. Third-Party Contextual Advertising - Google AdSense or YPN just don't excite me, and I think they'd undermonetize and be limited to only those folks who use Twitter on the web (and not through third party apps or mobile).
2. Broadcast Tweet Ads - Sending users a random ad tweet every 5, 10 or even 50 tweets isn't exciting and it's not targeted the way Twitter should be. Twitter knows something about everyone; leverage that if you're going to message your users.
3. Display Ads - For the same reasons as contextual advertising
4. Third Party Aps & APIs - I love that it's free now, and I think Twitter will be far more valuable by remaining completely free to users and open to developers. If they forced third party developers to pay.
5. Pay for Corporate Accounts - Can't prove you're a real person? Twitter charges for your corporate/brand account. It's an easy one (even if people set up lots of sock puppets to get around it, Twitter's sales/spam team can go find the valuable accounts), but it doesn't have the targeting value or the potential that some of the others do.
6. Pay for Followers - Twitter fans are going to get angry quickly if you auto-sign them up to follow a brand or person they don't know. I'd stay far away from this one.
7. Pay for Followed Links - Something tells me Google would be pretty quick to penalize Twitter, and they probably don't want to make enemies with the search giant just yet :-)

And here's some ideas I really like:

1. Keyword Purchases - Everytime someone Tweets the word "SEOmoz," I, as an advertiser, want two things. First, I want those users recorded so I can message to them in the future and second, I want the word to automatically become a link pointing to the page of my choosing (probably a Twitter-specific landing page for PRO in our case).
2. Search Ads on Twitter Search - As Twitter search becomes more popular (and it will, not just for obsessed Twitterers but brand managers and reputation analyst but for regular users and marketers and researchers, too), placing relevant ads in those searches becomes valuable. Better yet, you can combine Twitter searches with tweet history, so I could, for example, only show my ad to Twitter users who search for "SEO" and have previously twittered (or received twitters from those they follow) with my brand name.
3. Charging for Power Accounts - Your first 1,000 followers are free. After that, no one can follow you until you pay $50 a year (or some nominal, but affordable number). When you get to 5,000 or 10,000, the price goes up.
4. Subscribe Invitations from Advertisers - When I log into Twitter or reach my account page on the site, an overlay could indicate that some users have invited me to follow them. Those "invitations" could have 140 characters to say something clever and enticing enough to attract me and Twitter could target them based on my followers, followees and tweet history. There's a lot of targeting options for a brand manager seeking new followers.
5. Targeted Tweet Ads Based on Tweet History - Unlike the broadcast ad concept I didn't like above, these would rely on user history and profile to make them effective. If I've tweeted a combination of words a number of times or follow people who have, I'm an ideal candidate to receive a sponsored tweet every 20 or 50.
6. Opt-In Geo-Tweet Ads - You Tweet a location and advertisers can Tweet back (and appear in your mobile updates) with messaging. It's a pretty solid concept, although I worry that opt-in adoption rates would be low unless the advertiser quality controls were extremely high.
7. Pay to Opt Out of Ads - Don't want to receive Tweet ads or sponsored tweets (and maybe get some extra member features like a more robust timeline and maybe greater visibility or listing in some sort of Twitter user directory)? Pay $3 or $6 or $9 a month. It's a great extra revenue stream for those who'd (inevitably) complain about the ads.

Your turn - any good ideas for how Twitter should monetize? Any guesses as to which they'll adopt and when?

p.s. I recognize that many folks around the web have probably already voiced these ideas, and I've glanced at a few headlines on the topic, but thought I'd come at it independently without reading anything else first. If this were my job, I'd approach it much more systematically.

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Oh My God! Search is Changing Forever! SEO is Doomed! Run for the Hills!

Posted by randfish on Nov 24, 2008

Posted by randfish

With every tweak and change that comes to Google, it seems there's a new round of questions and blog posts and hand-wringing that follows the same old formula:

With the release of their new yippdy goobledy wobbledy, Google has changed the search game forever. Forget classic SEO, from now on, it's going to be all about blah blah blah.

It happened with:

• Personalization
• Local Results & Geo-Targeting
• Instant Answers & OneBox Results
• Google Knol
• Customization Based on History
• Universal Search

And now it's happening again with SearchWiki. Yet, in the 5+ years I've been doing SEO, the game has stayed remarkably similar through nearly every one of these "massive shifts." Actually, the biggest true changes I've seen to SEO have come from directional shifts at Google that typically received far less publicity and media attention:

• When Google rolled out the Florida update in Winter 2003 and many affiliate, thin content and low quality sites lost rankings (and the ability to pass good link juice)
• In 2004-5 as the Google Sandbox became a major part of new sites' experience in Google
• In 2005 when nofollow started to be implemented across blog comments and we could no longer buy our way to the top of the rankings with spammy blog links (although it really took a year or two to take full effect)
• In November 2006 when the search engines officially agreed to support the Sitemaps.org format

It's not that Google's other shifts haven't had an impact on SEO, it's just that they haven't been earth-shattering or groundbreaking or given us new paradigms to conquer. SEO remains, at its core, remarkably similar to what it was in 2002:

1. Make pages accessible
2. Target with keywords that searchers employ
3. Build content that users will find useful and valuable
4. Earn editorial links from good sources

Honestly, every time the "sky is falling" from some new change at Google, ask yourself if this 4 step process has been fundamentally undermined. Until then, you can relax - which is not to say you can stop learning, evolving and investigating every tactic that might give you an edge, but you don't have to go overboard chasing fads in SEO. As my Mother often says, "Moderation in all things, including moderation."

p.s. If there are major shifts in the last 5 years that you've felt have had a tremendous impact on how you do SEO, please do share. It's late and I've got an early meeting, so I'm sure I've missed a few.

p.p.s. I would say that for some sites and content types, the introduction of the maps results for local queries was actually earth-shattering.

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Florida Blogger Gets California Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed For Lack of Jurisdiction

Posted by Sarah Bird, Esquire on Nov 24, 2008

Posted by Sarah Bird, Esquire

May It Please the Mozzers,

The world is filled with all kinds of nutty people. Mostly, this is a wonderful thing. But sometimes it's not.

The case I want to discuss today involves two lawyers, a messy breakup, and a blog about "Guns, God, Food, Beer, Tools, Politics, and Whining."

Stephen Hogge, a Florida attorney, operates the blog Hog on Ice. He was sued in California by a former Miami School of Law classmate, Fatima dos Santos Fahmy, over statements he made about her on his blog, including calling her a deadbeat, maligning her work ethic, and falsely claiming that she was Hogge's former girlfriend. To get right to it, he falsely labeled her "a mentally ill alcoholic prostitute." Not surprisingly, Ms Fahmy didn't care for these remarks and tried to put her legal education to good use.

Representing herself, she sued Mr. Hogge on her home court, California.

Generally, if you're bringing a lawsuit you've got to sue the defendant where he lives. It's a basic fairness issue. Now, the fairness equation changes if you can successfully argue that the defendant sought you out in your home state to commit his wrongful acts. Why should you have to sue him over there if he went out of his way to  do something illegal in your state, right?

Mr. Hogge, also representing himself, asked the California court to dismiss the case because the California court has no jurisdiction over Florida residents. This is a standard legal challenge to multi-state jurisdictional issues.

Ms. Fahmy countered by arguing that Mr. Hogge subjected himself to jurisdiction in California by targeting her for his tortious remarks. He targeted her and she lives in California, ergo, California courts should have jurisdiction over Hogge.

Hogge replied by arguing that he didn't know she lived in California, so he couldn't have been targeting California.

At first, the court agreed with Ms. Fahmy. However, the Court later reconsidered and decided to go ahead and dismiss the lawsuit. But not without issuing a bit of a lecture to both parties for their alleged technical blunders in the case. Ms. Fahmy didn't properly authenticate her documents and Mr. Hogge filed over-length briefs. This proves again the old adage, "a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client."

Technically, this is a win for bloggers who are now less likely to be subjected to out-of-state suits. However, I can't help but feel this is a loss for exes  of nutty bloggers everywhere.

Eric Goldman and The Citizen Media Law Project also cover the case.

Best Regards,
Sarah

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Benchmarking Your Website: Metrics to Review Before an SEO Engagement Begins

Posted by randfish on Nov 23, 2008

Posted by randfish

Many SEO projects begin with a site review or audit, identifying potential weaknesses and opportunities. However, a great number of these analyses leave out a healthy dose of collecting metrics - a critical factor in helping to benchmark future progress and see how far you've come (and what effect your SEO changes have had). Thus, I figured it would be valuable to review, in full, the pre-review puzzle pieces essential to beggining an SEO campaign or overhaul. 

Identifying the Site Development Process & Players

Before we begin on the metrics and site analysis itself, it's wise to consider  - shock, shock - the people! Although it may seem like websites spring from the ether of servers and code, in fact, human beings are behind every piece of content, page, file and domain name on the web. Figuring out the responsibilities and duties of the people on the web development team is an essential part of the auditing & review process for every consultant or in-house SEO seeking to implement change.

If you're a small business or an individually run site, you can skip this section. For those of you that have an internal organizational hierarchy, here's the process I like to follow:

• Step 1: Identify the website management:
  • Who manages the front-end design & production?
  • Who handles back-end development and databases?
  • Who is responsible for content approval?
• Step 2: Where is approval required?
  • Which pages need approval from who in order to make changes?
  • What permission is required to make sitewide changes or add new pages/navigation/content?
• Step 3: Who has access to website reporting data?
  • What programs track visitor activity on the site?
  • What are the logins to the visitor tracking software?
  • Is log-file access or spider monitoring available?

Next, you'll need to consider the site's content management system and flexibility. SEO upgrades often require changes outside the scope of a typical CMS, and knowing this early on will give you the foresight required to prepare and accurately estimate the resources you'll need to allocate to the project. Ideally, you should create and maintain a document that tracks the areas above and records the responsible parties and login information. Once you start making recommendations, this will considerably speed up the development process.

Categorizing and Segmenting Your Site

In order to conduct an accurate analysis of your search engine traffic, you need to have a good idea of not only how much search traffic you're pulling in, but which sections of content are driving value. Very frequently, more link-worthy and well-linked-to content like blogs, articles and top level pages overperform while other sections languish in obscurity. By effectively segmenting your site into similar groups you can uncover the discrepencies.

My personal methodology for this is to segment search traffic in the web analytics program by restricting to URL matches. Simply view the list of pages receiving search traffic, then filter by URL - you can use either the "contains" or "begins with" settings to help narrow down to the section(s) of interest.

In the example above, you can see only those pages in YOUmoz that brought in search traffic. This same methodology can be applied to all the other areas of SEOmoz, helping tell us which parts of the site are bringing in traffic from the search engines. Once you have this data, it's time to make some determinations about size and proportions - basically, you need to know how many search accessible pages are in each section and what percentage of those are bringing in traffic. Otherwise, you might be severely mis-calculating value and opportunity.

Take the example of a site with 10,000 blog posts and 200 product pages. The blog posts are bringing in 50,000 search visits per month while the product pages send 1,000 search visits per month. While this might seem like a fair balance (both are bringing in an average of 5 visits per page), it's not enough data. We need to know what percent of pages in each section are sending any traffic at all, and preferrably, look at the distribution of visits to pages. If only 1,000 of the 10,000 blog posts are sending 95% of those 50,000 search visits, we can quickly make the assumption that there's a problem and investigate (typically, if that were the case, I'd be thinking poor archiving with lots of ugly pagination is responsible, but it's always worth a look).

In any analytics assessment, you have to dig deep to find the answers and SEO is no different. Get the right numbers in the right way and you can accurately monitor what's going on; make assumptions based on incomplete or surface-level data and risk squandering potential opportunities. 

Assessing Historical Progress

As you collect metrics for the SEO process ahead, it's extremely valuable to get historical as well as current data. My preference is too look at no fewer than 6 months, and preferrably 2 years of data on all of the following points:

• Quantity of content - how many pages have existed on the site?
  HINT: Look at the number of pages listed in the "most popular pages by URL" section
• Search engine inclusion - what percent of these have drawn in search traffic?
  HINT: Refine the list from above by only pages receiving search traffic and see what numbers come up
• Link acquisition - what has been the rate of growth for links?
  HINT: Use referring URLs over time - the data from the engines won't be particularly helpful here unless you've been manually keeping track of it (or using something like SEO Analytics).
• Overall search traffic - how much has it gone up/down in the past?
  HINT: This one's easy, just look at search engine traffic over time
• Distribution of search traffic across engines - has Google shrunk while Yahoo! rose?
  HINT: Another easy one to solve; simply separate the engines individually

Once you have this information, you can apply it immediately by identifying spikes and drops. What were the events that preceeded both positive and negative changes to the site's SEO? You'll want to repeat projects that brought value and ditch those that weren't worth the time and energy. Particularly when it comes to public relations, press/media campaigns and viral content, watching these numbers can give you a real sense for performance and ROI.

Leveraging Data for SEO Improvements

Once you've assembled the data you need, you're ready to begin an SEO evaluation and get to work improving your site's ability to perform in the engines. The process of data collection itself is valuable - you'll know how to assess performance for the future (and you've got a baseline from which to compare), but that's not the only benefit. The information you collect should allow you to be smarter about the methods you pursue for search engine optimization. For example, discovering that only 20% of the pages on your site bring in search traffic can be an instant alert that accessibility, duplicate/thin content or lack of link juice are responsible for keeping a high number of URLs out of the indices. Likewise, many pages targeting high value keywords but pulling in minimal search referrals can indicate that better optimization and possibly more/better links are required to rank competitively.

Please do share your thoughts around benchmarking metrics for SEO and how to apply them in campaigns.

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Whiteboard Friday - Machine Learning

Posted by great scott! on Nov 21, 2008

Posted by great scott!

This week one of our mad geniuses in residence, Ben Hendrickson, steps in front of the camera to discuss something a little different: Machine Learning.

Ben is one of the folks that designed and built the technology behind Linkscape, so he's certainly studied this topic thoroughly. Here he'll talk about how and why advancements, findings, and theories that emerge from the larger machine learning field have significant relevance to search, and why paying attention to those findings can help show us how the engines may change and adjust in the future.




SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Machine Learning from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

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A Night of Whiskey and Fine Cigars Puts Blogging Back on Track

Posted by chris.whiteley on Nov 20, 2008

It was a chill and crisp November evening, I was busy relaxing while filling the air with the sweet sweet scent of Cuban cigar smoke. A glass of whiskey in one hand, and cigar in the other. Nothing was going to stop my moment of peace and serenity.

Not even crack heads living below me cooking up their crystal meth could ruin my perfect moment.

I was on a mission. I wanted to enjoy the finer things in life, and at the same time find some kind of blogging inspiration. Back when I had no job, and only this good ole Adsense blog to keep me going I would find inspiration from so many places. From Scarface to the Beastie Boyz, people like Keanu Reeves and Kirk Douglas. All these things have inspired me in the past.

Now that I have a real job, I find that I don’t think about blogging as much as I should. I used to think about it all the time.  So I sit there enjoying my cigar, watching every single person that goes past me, trying to find some kind of blogging inspiration from them.

It wasn’t until I saw some crazy jogger running by that made me think:

“That poor bastard, he has to exercise while get to sit here and enjoy a scotch and stogie”

And then it hit me, my blogging inspiration: exercise.

I am just going to assume that you hate exercise as much as I do. It’s something we have to do, but is just so freakin annoying. It is a necessity. Much like our bodies, our blogs need exercise. We need to keep up posting, getting better, improving. We need to be hitting the the forums that focus on our niche topic and doing a few laps. We should head to Technorati and see what the champs in our niche are saying and then do a couple reps with them. Do a circuit and read through the blogs you have subscribed to and comment.

All these things are ways to build a stronger blog. They are all ways to exercise your blog. They are time consuming and annoying, just like exercising, but they are the only way we can stay fit. Now in keeping up this metaphor, my blog has been getting fat, I have stopped hitting the forums, reading other blogs. So now I am going to head out and do a few laps.

So What Should We Be Asking Bloggers?

Posted by Jane Copland on Nov 19, 2008

Posted by Jane Copland

Last week at Pubcon in Las Vegas, I took part in a session titled, "5 Bloggers and a Microphone." Since then, we've heard a fair bit of feedback that people were disappointed in the session, mainly because the questions we were asked didn't allow us to impart any good blogging knowledge. As was reported in many different places, one attendee asked an in-depth paid search question which none of us were at all qualified to answer. The discussion often veered towards Twitter, and we spent the first portion of the hour talking about the U.S. election.

From the perspective of someone on the panel, it was minorly frustrating not to be asked more challenging questions. Both panelists and speakers missed opportunities to get into difficult, controversial or interesting discussions. In the future, panelists should arrive with three or four key points that they'd like to discuss, and they should compare notes beforehand to avoid overlap. In Q&A-focused sessions, panelists often rely on the moderator and the audience to provide all the material: we're basically led to believe that this is going to satisfy up to ninety minutes of content. Sometimes it does, but when moderation, audience interaction or panelist-involvement fails, you're left staring at a room of tired conference attendees who want information and entertainment that you are ill-prepared to provide.

Towards the end of the session, we received some good questions; however, there was plenty of room for improvement. It should take less than forty-five minutes for a panel about such a hot topic to get going. It would be a shame to write the panel off, as it has a lot of potential to be informative and entertaining. Unofficially, I suggest we be allowed to show up with a drink in hand... and is that such an odd request, given that it's Vegas?!

Blogging certainly has its place in the SEO world. For better or for worse, many SEOs have found notoriety through publishing online. We've certainly seen big rewards from the activity on our blog, and we know that there are more opportunities to be had in the future. Despite the fact that many of the industry's best search engine optimisation professionals don't blog, we have a culture of online publishing. A successful blog is one catalyst to being recognised, respected and offered business. It is not, however, a simple task to maintain a viable blog and sometimes it's downright agonising.

Here's what I would provide as discussion points or questions if faced with a panel of bloggers... And here are my replies, because I like talking to myself in an empty room!


How on earth do you find new things to blog about every day or every week? There is so much back-scratching, in-fighting, speculation and repetition in all circles of bloggers. Surely your blog is no better than the next one, and in fact, it might be worse.

It might be. As I said in my second session at Pubcon (Community Hacking: 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ), blogging has liberalised and liberated publishing to the extent that any idiot can do it. You may well be an idiot. I'm most likely one too. I didn't have to get a degree in anything to write online, and half the things I write probably mean that my English degree should be revoked.

"Finding something to write about" rarely works for me. I either have something to say or I don't, and when I look at my inventory of posts here, I can clearly see when I wrote because I wanted to and when I wrote because I thought I had to. I am lucky in that, if I don't write, someone else here will. However, I understand the panic faced by blog owners who don't have multiple writers at their disposal.

My best advice is that if you don't have anything to blog about, either don't write, or don't be afraid to write something humourous, personal or otherwise out-of-the-ordinary. I've attempted to pull good advice out when it's really not there to begin with. Works about as well as a stuffed meta keywords tag in the poker SERPs.


How do you deal with trolls?

Here's one no blog owner wants to touch. Calling somebody a troll is a dangerous game. People accuse bloggers and webmasters of covering their own shortcomings by singling out critics and labeling them trolls. The fact is, however, that offensive people do roam the Internet in search of trouble.

We've banned people on this site before (and I'm not talking about spammers). It takes a lot of terrible behaviour to accurately label someone a troll: a lesson I've learned by doing it inaccurately a couple of times. Set rules for what constitutes trolling or offensive behaviour on your blog and develop a warning system. We've published our blog etiquette policies, and it's useful to have them "on paper." Personally email people who break your rules and kindly point out your policies. Employ an "x-strikes and you're out" rule and stick to it. Don't publicise the banning. It's not a medal of honour and you only invite the troll to return from a new IP. From my experience, both here and (more so) when hearing about other people's problems, trolls don't return after they've been banned. If they do, they don't stay for long. Don't celebrate them and give them reason to rejoin the discussion.


Great, so I have a place to impart my undoubtedly incredible knowledge. What else is a blog good for?

During Community Hacking: 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ, I was asked to talk a little about how we drive links and eyeballs to our site via the blog. It seems to come as a bit of a surprise to many people that blogs aren't just good for writing up advice. Some other things we've done with our blog include:

• Linking to larger projects, such as the Search Rankings Factors, Web 2.0 Awards and our SEO guides. It's a huge mistake to launch projects and not link to them from a more prominent area. Blogs are easy to keep track of, frequently indexed and generally incredibly SEO-friendly. If a site has no blog, giving new content maximum visibility is a lot harder.
  
  
  
  Screen shots of screen shots. Only on a blog, people.
  
  
• Another thing we've done recently is re-write our Beginner's Guide to SEO via blog posts. When they're complete, we'll compile the individual posts (read: chapters) into one document, relaunch the guide and 301 redirect all the blog posts to the finished article. Thus, we've been actively building links to a document that is still under construction. Once it's finished, we'll add those new links to those of the old document. This isn't only good for severly outdated articles (do we advocate reciprocal links and submissions to Lycos in there?! It's about that old!). Any project that you'd like to build over time could be released in this manner. Just remember the redirects in order to avoid looking like the grand master of duplicate content.
• We've done this to an extent (although I don't recall specifically doing it for link building purposes), but deciding how to handle comments is great for driving links. Sometimes, the comments are what people link to! Think of Sphinn, a social news site with hardly any original content... aside from user comments. People link to Sphinn pages when they want readers to vote on their content, but they also link to noteworthy comment threads. No matter how boring your blog post, interesting comments can still drive some links.
  
  On the other hand, closing comments forces people to talk about you elsewhere. It would be stupid to talk about a post and not link to it, so they'll also throw you a link while they're discussing what you wrote. Win! Of course, they could be horrible and nofollow your link, or copy and past your URL, but very few people are willing to be this much of a tool. Bloggers must decide when comments should be open or closed. I have no solid figures on this, but it seems that ninety percent of blogs allow comments.

Mind your language, young lady. Or should you?

We've used some choice language on here more than once. The person charged with writing the Bank of America's corporate blog (no, I doubt such a beast exists) shouldn't be cursing up a storm, but the odd swear word here and there isn't going to hurt. They say that swearing is a sign of a lazy vocabulary, but I tend to take great care with my choice of profanity and if it adds to the conversation, I'll use it. We do it very rarely (I believe Rand got, for want of a better term, a lot of shit for it once), but the rest of us have dropped in some language that our grandmas wouldn't like as well. However, unless the blog is supposed to be a Cracked.com-style catalogue of all things terrible, avoid using curse words as commas.


Should you care about your audience?

This sort of came up during the session, and I noted that audiences change a lot over time. Very few of our daily commenters from 2006 are still active participants now. It would be wrong to mourn the loss of these people, some of whom still visit and comment from time to time, but I agree that caring about a blog's audience is essential. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that it will change. Also, people who don't take part anymore aren't necessarily not reading, and their reasons for backing away aren't necessarily a negative reflection on you our your writing. Lisa Ditlefsen recently mentioned to me that she used to spend a lot more time reading and commenting on SEOmoz than she does now. However, it was her life and schedule that changed, not her respect for us or our content.

Blogs, forums and other online groups worry that older members won't welcome new members, but blogs' ever-changing audiences suggests that this isn't a huge problem. At SEOmoz, people make themselves known pretty quickly and, aside from the aforementioned trolls, newly active members aren't ignored or rejected.

Short version: yes, care about who reads the blog and recognise that they make your efforts worthwhile. However, realise that no audience is permanent.


I really hope that Pubcon brings back the 5 Bloggers and a Microphone session again next year. The only thing it needs is some extra structure, both from panelists and moderators. If Pubcon wanted to really push the Q&A aspect of the panel, they should consider adopting an SMX-style question format where audience members email or text in questions. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that room full of SEOs and online marketers would rather write down their questions than deliver them via microphone! Would extra structure and some better-conceived questions save this session? And what would you ask a table full of search marketing industry bloggers, aside from "what time is Search Bash?"

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