We did nothing to help them. And we high fived ourselves because we got a ranking. Look how


MozCon 2014 - 21 - Will Reynolds - You Are so Much More than an SEO

smart we are, right? No, we ignored the fact that those people needed help and we didn't


give a shit because we wanted the rankings and we got the words in there and nothing.


Good. So I've done it. So now I'm going to start going into the more


tactical part of the presentation on how you guys can start to look at other things you're


doing and bring these things together to get more visibility in your companies all focused


around the customer for the most part. I got a couple of just like janky link building


tips that I was like I got to share them at Moscon. So I do have some of that still. But


how often do we hear the SEM people talk and we go not my problem, let them keep talking


about all their stuff that I don't know anything about, whatever, it's fine. I'm going to show


you why you should care. So for instance, like, you know, usually if you're divided


up, you have SEO, you have PPC, you know, PPC people might run the Facebook ads. And


we got a 2500% ROI, conversions for a customer, for a client, using Facebook custom audiences.


We found people who had bought their service and then at some point were no longer subscribers,


put them in a separate list because we had their permission to email them and we emailed


them afterwards. What's interesting about that is that made SEO more valuable. It got


me more money back to do more RCS. But it wasn't about SEO working harder or building


more links. It was about understanding that some of these customers are leaving and what


do I have to bring them back in? And I went, ooh, as an SEO, I really don't have a lot.


And that's when our PPC team showed up and Nick showed up and was like, whoa, let's try


this. He blogged about it. So it's completely up there on our blog about exactly how this


was done, client names removed. But I think it can be really helpful for you guys. Facebook


custom audiences love it. The link building side of me loves it for targeting journalists.


So if you can get permission to email a journalist, you can put them in a custom audience and


show them your asset. You take what I'm talking about and what Justin was talking about yesterday


about retargeting out of analytics, you can show a journalist your asset 10, 20, 30 times


before you ever do outreach. It will look familiar to them, right? Like, oh, I've seen


this thing getting big on the Web. No, I've just been advertising to you, but okay. It's


a way that you can use Facebook custom audiences. I love it. I got to play with it a little


bit. So I thought I wasn't talking about links. I'm still talking about links. I'm just a


dirty link builder still at heart sometimes. So I can't even give you a part of this presentation.


It's a presentation by itself. But Drew Meyer took over from one of our interns who ran


a test for us. We built links by doing PPC. Well, that's not my problem. Remember not


my problem? It is. Because you can build some of the links you need or get some of the outcomes


that you're seeking by looking at other divisions and working with them. Here's the URL to the


slide deck. Stacy, thank you for putting that out yesterday. I appreciate that. That's really


kind of you. We ran a whole test. We blew 10 grand, gave it to an intern and said come


back and tell us what you learned from all these different things. But the way we had


to pitch it is we had to first use analytics data and say these are the things that are


already socially taking off. So if I can just get more eyeballs on it, it's just going to


keep taking off. Right? Because the users have already voted with their fingers, with


their clicks. Right? They're like, oh, we love that content. Great. If you already love


it, then why don't I put that into a content thing like Outbrain or Tabooya or whatever.


But we have to pitch this to an SEO client as we need your analytics. Why? We need to


actually pitch you an SEM idea. And they're like SEM? We have another agency for that.


Okay, we'll slow down. Ultimately I'm going to get you what you want us to get and what


we're trying to get for you. But this is the way I'm going to have to do it.


When PR people talk, we often look like this. When are they going to shut up? That's what


we do. Oh, my God, I can't wait until you guys see all this awesomeness I've been working


on. I went to MozCon, RCS. You guys don't know shit. This is what we typically do. Why


is up? Because I'm going to share with you the best way I know to get in front of reporters


possible. This is inspired by Steph Biddell, who was on stage earlier. She showed me the


beginning of this and I tweaked it a little bit. And then Emma Still, who has also helped


me kind of refine some of this. So all my tweets, simple tool. Go find a journalist


you actually want to get in touch with. Right? Once you find someone like Jenna Wortham,


you know, muck rack will list out their Twitter handle, go get it and drop it in all my tweets.


Two clicks, you're done. It will then show you the person's last 3200 tweets. Cool. Now


I've got your last 3200 tweets. I can find how you phrase words when you're working on


a story. So then every time you're getting ready to work on a story, guess who knows?


This guy. And if it fits my client or I know you're beat, I can then make sure I get in


front of you and answer that question super quick. Use if this and that to push it right


to my phone and get me a text message. So this probably might be a little bit hard to


see. But basically what you do, thanks Steph for showing this to me early on, is you find


that phrase and you drop it into quotes or you don't. And then the first time Steph showed


this to me, we were doing this search for for a story, but the problem is that it brings


so much shit. Like Drake did a song like for a story or something, and all of a sudden


I was getting all this noise. And I'm like, this is useless. So now what you do is you


just create a separate list of all the journalists you want to target. And then in TweetDeck,


you just filter that list. You say, I want this phrase across the whole web, but only


for this list of people. And then I would say, automatically star that, if this, then


that to yourself, hit your phone and get back to that journalist ASAP. That is the best


way I know to get high quality links and get in front of journalists. Requires a little


bit of homework, but it's freaking awesome. Graph search. Already been talked about. But


one thing that Stacy didn't mention, so I can still add some value here, is friends


are friends who work at a publication. I hate Facebook. I'm off of Facebook. But I had to


go back on it so that I could stalk journalists. Am I going to only post like once a month


or something just because I have to keep it kind of fresh, otherwise nobody will follow


me. But the fact that I can stalk you through graph search is amazing. You know, I don't


know why I was doing this search, but I was and was like, oh, this is interesting. Why


would I search my wife's single friend? You know, research, damn it, it was research.


Anybody here from Ashley Madison? Do this query. Where monogamy is monotony. That's


smart marketing. I might not agree with what you guys do, but I can respect your freaking


hustle. That's smart marketing. What's also interesting is that that journalist talks


about new rules a lot. For those of us, you know, oh, good, I'm in Seattle, so it's super


cool to be like all left wing hippie. You know, it's like you watch Bill Maher, new


rules. She talks about new rules all the time. I've been talking about, and some of you guys


might have seen this, I was talking about how to get in front of a journalist in the


UK who got like hundreds of thousands of followers in the fashion space. She, I've been kind


of like nudging at her about stuff from time to time because the person she responds to


the most on all of Twitter is Boy George. And what's interesting is just in the little


needling back and forth, one day I was like, Boop, Boy George is following you, Will. And


I'm like, holy shit, this stuff works. I got Boy George following me. And I loved Boy George


and Culture Club back in the day. I was all over, I'll tumble for you. So, last year when


I was here, I told you guys I would come back and I would share a shitload of stuff we were


doing with If This Then That. I don't have any freaking time. So, we built an asset,


it's probably the thing that's taken off the most on our whole blog ever. And all it is,


is we got like a hackathon at CIRI and we said the only thing we're going to talk about


is If This Then That and we're going to build out like the 50 best If This Then That queries


for marketers who want to stalk CEOs, journalists, et cetera. So, you just have to Google it


because I forgot to put the bit.ly in. Sorry, Eric, I was scared. You see the theme of this


presentation is I wanted to put stuff in, but I was scared. It's a great way to find


journalists, monitor them, understand their beat and what they're looking for. So, target


hashtags that the influencers use. So, now that I know she uses new rules, I can get


on her radar, right? This is much better for an agency because I can get on her radar just


in general and spend money on it even if she's not in my vertical yet because someday she


might be. So, this guy, Ben Wienkoop, he did this. Shoutout to Kane Jamison and Sam Hendricks.


You guys are doing this for this. I was like, yo, they got it. Damn it. You guys have done


a great job on this. Ben Wienkoop did this after something I spoke at. And he used the


hashtag and paid for promoted tweets out of his own pocket to test and play. And short


enough, I got it and I started using it. These kind of things kill LinkedIn from a social


standpoint, right? Because nobody likes anything on LinkedIn except shit like this. So, now


I've got content that he built for me that was probably pretty easy once he got the typeface


and everything down based off of him sitting in a meetup. Really smart. And it got my motherfucking


attention. Like, it's hard to do that. So, follow this guy. Because that's just some


smart I was like I hate when people do something so good and I didn't think of it first. It


just was like a punch in the gut. You're like, oh, why do I think of that? That's super smart.


So, I'd say follow him. Really smart guy. When the brand people come in, hey, not my


problem. I don't want to talk to you about that. I got to go build links. That's often


the response. So, which of these different logos is Chili's


new one? I've been showing this for a while. I'm showing it again until we start influencing


the way our clients look at their brands. There's only two of them up there. So, that


means when people search for the logo, they're going to use it somewhere and they're going


to continue to perpetuate the old brand. It's a great way to use your search skills to bridge


that gap. And I'm freaking late, so I'm going to hurry up. One of our clients increased


a thousand percent to a page around a holiday year over year.


Here's the so their page authority actually went down year over year and we had only built


another 14 links. A thousand percent more in revenue. So, I can shout her out by name,


but not by company. So, Patty, this is for you. They built a YouTube video. They got


5 million views in the first week. All of you have seen it. And when you saw it, you


were like, yo, this is good. It was amazing. What's interesting is that all their page


one rankings improved about 10% across all track keyboards when they built something


that really pushed the brand. My fear is that when a client stops doing TV, that it's going


to affect my ranking someday because there's less type in traffic, less people looking.


That is a fear of mine. So, I'm trying to research my ass off on how does brand and


type in traffic affect my rankings because if they cut that budget and then all of a


sudden your rankings start to drop, then guess what they're going to do? Your boss is going


to come to all of you guys and say, I need more traffic. And you're like, well, the part


that I'm not ever a part of is actually what's causing my rankings to go down. I'm trying


to work on this. When people talk about video, maybe after yesterday you're not, after Phil


showed all that awesome stuff, but I wasn't here because I was practicing. But I saw the


mods con thread blow up and I was like, oh, my God. Something we're trying to do for a


client of ours, we're trying to turn views into revenues. So, for anybody that's got


a software client or you work in a software business and you come out with new versions


and people are on the old version, there's two things we're doing. We're taking people


that have created tutorials and doing advertising on those tutorials specifically for features


that make that job easier. So, imagine you go to YouTube and you search for blah, blah,


blah tutorial 2012 old software query that tells me you have the old software. And then


I know what feature you're looking for. And if the new feature set user experience can


save you time, that's the ad I want to show you on YouTube. We did an analysis on how


long those should be. And Harris did it. It's up on the blog. Take a look at it. And, oh,


my God, the custom audience targeting you can do. You have their email address, you


have their product that they have. Think about it. You can target them as old customers and


pitch them on the new feature set. Content. You guys are like, oh, yeah, well, we know.


We're the content people. Got something for you.


Here's the link. The slide shows are already up. Ethan freaking Lion. His middle name is


not freaking. But Ethan Lion, we work with him. He is amazing. We were working with a


client on how to use this data in the hospital space. So, that's why we were searching for


different cancers. What Ethan did is he basically scraped ten years of Google Trends data and


looked for what words spike every time in every year of those ten years, when does that


term spike and get the highest volume. And if it's the same month every year, we know


that month, every year for ten years has been how that happens. He wrote the whole tutorial


off. A lot of you guys did not see this. This is amazing. Videos and everything on how to


do this. What then he also did is he did that since he had the data for the entire Internet.


So he basically built a content calendar for the Web. What this allowed us to do is look


at our content marketing differently. So hopefully you're not just like, uh-huh, yeah. What we


did is we took, okay, if we're going to help our client with things around awareness on


breast cancer, then if I can figure out what's gotten hot every time in February for the


last ten February's, then I can start to create content that fits what is naturally going


to fit at that time of year related to my client. So when the Emmys come out and you


realize that the Emmys drive have driven like significantly high search volume around that


word every year for the last ten years in the same month, then how can I make my content


relevant for those people? Obviously talking about actors, actresses who have battled cancer


and overcome it might actually fit. This is already done, guys. There's a blog post up


on it. I hope you guys play with it and enjoy it. Demographics Pro, I'm so glad nobody talked


about it because I was scared because it's so phenomenal. I can't believe not enough


people are using it. Super cheap tool. You can drop in any Twitter handle on the Web


and it will give you this kind of information. It looks at the words people use to tell the


difference between races and all that kind of cool shit. And luckily we now have a data


scientist that's here so I can actually see like I want his opinion on how strong he thinks


this data is, so he's going to grill him a little bit and we'll let you know. But like


I can now break down like ten percent of all the people that follow this one client of


ours are journalists. Whoa, time out. Maybe I don't need to do a bunch of outreach and


try to create some new relationships when the second highest demographic of people who


follow me happen to be freaking journalists. For Moz people, one way to do this, take follower


wonk, take out all the bios, clean it up a little bit, throw all the bios from a Twitter


feed or from all your Twitter followers into a tag crowd. It will bold the words that people


use the most in their bios. This is how they choose to describe themselves in the world.


Why would you not use that to influence what you actually build? One of our clients is


in the motorcycle space. Basically we found the top two words that people use once you


sort out other crap were dad and photographer. Great. Why don't we get you taking a picture


of your kid on your motorcycle? Wow. Think about it. Easy pitch when you talk about the


demographics versus some made up I think people are going to like. It's like these are your


real people who follow. You can do this to your competitors. I can get their interests.


Oh, I don't want to talk about anything that's got a science angle because most of your followers


don't really care about that. But they sure do love wining and dining and cooking. Hey,


where should I do my banner ad buy? Maybe I should do it on real simple. Because 15%


of your audience is already there. They tell you what magazines those people follow on


Twitter so then they go you realize that you and this magazine have a nice overlap. That


might be a place where you want to pitch. And when you're trying to pitch a real asset,


think about the conversation you get to have with your higher ups. This is where our customers


are. This is where our fans are. I want to get in front of them and build something that


that journalist is going to want. So I might have to spend a month not building you links


to understand our audience. 33% of all people that follow that client also follow Oprah.


Think about what you can do with that content. Oprah got 30,000 freaking people to like one


picture. I don't even know what she's doing there. 30,000 people. What's interesting is


that there's some ways to scrape out UIDs which then you can do a custom Facebook audience


if you do that but it breaks Facebook's terms of service so I'm not here to talk about that.


Talk to Chad Gingrich about that. He'll tell you about it. But you can do it the right


way. Think about the conversation you're going to start having with the brand. I've analyzed


the brand. It's 29 bucks to run like a Twitter handle that has under 10,000 followers. You


got 29 bucks? Do it on your own dime. If the product sucks, how many of you guys in here


if the product sucks, you're like not my problem. It's your problem. You can help fix it. Chad


Gingrich and Adam were kicking it back and forth on a thread at Seer and what we did


is we started looking at these queries. Why can't client do? Right? Why can't company


do? I mean, this is literally a copy and paste from the thing. So we said let's try this


for Etsy. Why can't Etsy is a query. Look at that query, run it based on time. So make


sure you might say, oh, just a month. Maybe it's I'm going to do it for a year so you


don't get old features but they've actually fixed. And then I go to the product team and


I go I know how to use search to improve the user experience of your product because not


everybody is going to tell you your product sucks. Try those searches, see what you find.


Now you've got a seat at the table with fucking product as a search person. Product. This


is the way to get their attention. This is what they struggle with. Help them out. And


then build pages that answer that and participate in all those communities. Tell them you fixed


it, you listen. People do this with FedEx. Why do they ship puppies? What's really interesting


is that UPS outranks FedEx. Why? Because the page is garbage. I wanted to know how I could


ship my puppy, which I would never do. It's why I drive cross country with my dog because


my dog ain't going underneath. I'm sorry. It's just too good to me. I cannot leave her


under there for five hours by herself. Poor thing. I'm sure as hell not giving them to


somebody who refers to her as a live animal. Think about it. UPS could just gangster, rip


off FedEx's searches like this. They're already number one. But if they focused on the search


user experience, they could make a better experience right there and just rape and pillage


their competitor. But they're not doing it. Why? Because somebody is probably like oh,


that doesn't convert. Look at your pages that don't convert and try your ass off to make


them answer people's questions better. And then all of a sudden I'm like oh, well, maybe


FedEx does, but I never got to their site because I clicked on UPS's site and saw that


they said yes, we will ship your puppy. I love ripping people off like that. Ali


Freeze showed me this. Betterific? I had never heard of it. So in that thread, the Washington


wizards basically said hey, how can we give us some ideas, audience? And they did. And


this allows people to upvote and downvote what they thought. Somebody is like well,


you're already giving out T-shirts at the game. Yes, yes. Okay. So why don't you give


the red ones to all the people at the top, the white ones to all the people in the middle


and the blue ones to all the people at the bottom so when you take pictures it looks


amazing. Free advice. Use the site, play with it. I haven't played with it yet, but I just


saw it like two weeks ago. So I'm playing with a lot of stuff right now. So I haven't


had a chance to play with it, but I thought that was genius. Because, guys, too often


we're not giving customers what they want. We're giving them what we want them to want.


I want you to want my pop-up. But you came for my content. You know what? I'll go to


my freaking grave saying I don't care if you get more people to sign up for your freaking


newsletter. I came for your content. Stop blocking what I'm telling you I'm coming for


so you can get two more percentage points and open rates in your fucking emails. I don't


even know if I'm going to like the content yet. Why are you asking me if I want to sign


up for your newsletter? Yeah, but it gets me a higher click through conversion. Shut


up. You're getting in the way of the user experience. I will go to my grave before I


ever put some shit like that up on my website. And I know Jen's going. Jen's probably like


SEO is this community manager? She's like, oh, hell no. So Ms. Lopez, yes, we are community


managers, dammit. Because we were so desperate to connect with other people we never met


that we used 14-4 HST modems from U.S. Robotics to do it. Or 9600s or 48s or 24s. How far


you want to go back? That's how desperately we were on websites that had graphics that


loaded like tick, tick, tick. Because we just wanted to connect so bad. We endured one of


the worst user experiences to connect. I'm going to skip that. Here's something that


happens when you focus on users first. MailChimp, they produce awesome stuff. I'm going to skip


this because I got to make sure I get to the end. I'll go back one. So they were unwilling


to do that like what every other email marketing company does, which is like email marketing


powered by. They're like we're not going to do it. And you know what? By them saying we're


not going to SEO that crap or do whatever you want to call it, they ranked number 13


for the word email marketing even though they killed community. And then one day they woke


up and said we're going to do that. They did it. Went to number two. One change, 13 to


two. Money. Money. One change. Because SEO for them was the last step. Producing great


content for their audience was their first step. And anybody that uses them, they seem


like they really do care a lot about their customers. Focus on the search user experience.


Remember that half a million dollar opportunity? This is revenue for a client over a year from


forums. How much time are you spending in forums? Probably not enough. And that's the


assisted conversion and then that's the last click. And think about it. Forums, people


typically don't participate. So how many people are lurking and seeing this client on all


these forums when they're doing their research and they're saying these guys care about their


customer. I can see them all up and in the forums just helping people out. Oh, those


links are no follow. Right. Who cares? Somewhere between $11,000 and $550,000 in a year is


the truth. But how much time would it take if you spent one hour a month looking in the


forums and trying to help people with your expertise? It's not a lot of time to have


a chance to go get half a million dollars, which is actually probably more than that.


So here's something that Min asked me to do a keynote for local you. And I'm like, dude,


I don't do local. And he's like, you'll figure it out. So thanks, Min, for the pressure.


The pressure made me come up with something I never came up with before. And it was why


not search forums, active forums. I own this one because I freaking love Philly. So I own


this forum. A lot of people are there. And do a site colon search for a forum and the


word looking for and your keyword. Maybe you're going to find people looking for babysitters


or dog sitters, Sara. Parking, contractors, stores. People are looking for stuff on this


forum. Do this search. Go care about the customer and their experience and help them. Not like


and buy my shit over here. Just help them. I know somebody who has built an eight person


real estate business and all she did was help everybody who cared about Fishtown, which


is a neighborhood in Philly. All she did was know it so well and just share that information


freely. I'll show you that house for free. I know you have another real estate agent.


Don't worry about using me. How many people are paying for apartment listings and getting


clicks and doing PPC when this poor sap home inspector BC asked a question and no one answered


him? That is free conversions right there. That is the ability to build a community.


It is sitting right in front of our faces. And SEOs get site colon queries. Right? We


get that. You can do searches for unanswered replies because it's, you know, reply colon


zero. Your keyword, site colon. Go help people. Improve their experience everywhere you can.


How much time are you putting into that? I'm about on time, I think. I'm going to pay you


a picture. Actually, I'm not. I'm going to skip a couple slides. Darn it. So CMOs are


saying they're looking for talent with a blend of creative and analytical and they're saying


this is hard. I think this is where we are strong and we're so much stronger than typical


well-ticked typical creatives. Right? The president of global brands for Kimberly Clark,


the key is to use analytics to enhance creativity. Now, think about that, guys. Analytics came


first. We get that shit. Let's use that to influence creativity. They're asking for it.


They're saying that they can't find these people. And I'm going raise your hands because


aren't we these people? Can't we do that? We do it all day. Use the data to enhance


creativity. This is mad Jeff. So there was another book that I read when I was unable


to do any work. And something that Jeff said in his autobiography or his biography was


when they looked at the MP3 business, he was like they should put the CD business out of


business. And he looked at those two teams and said I'm going to throw the chum in the


middle. You guys fight. And they fought and they both lost, actually. We all know that.


It should have been Spotify. But he said if we don't kill the CD business, someone else


will, and then we're all fucked. The MP3 business can't hire the CD people because we didn't


fight for it. So my question for you is what can we cannibalize that we do every day and


go let's go kill that. Let's go kill that and get rid of that. So I'm going to walk


you guys through some pitches that we've lost to show you how we're trying to do this. And


a lot of clients aren't buying it. So we're losing pitches. We pitched a client an app.


The client's in the job space. And they're all about happiness. Lost it. They said you're


an SEO company. I want links. What are you talking about building an app? And I said,


well, people feel trapped at work. You say that. People think their work sucks. You say


that. Then what would happen if we knew when they're starting to get unhappy before they


do a search? What would happen if I knew you were unhappy at work before you did a search?


Or went to Monster? Sounds familiar, right? I thought so. It's called Google Now. I pitched


them on doing we pitched them we did a whole big brainstorm on doing Google Now for job


search. How about I push notify you that there are jobs that match you better because we've


seen you've been unhappy for five days and every day you walk by a company that matches


the profile of what you love based on what their employees say about their happiness.


Rejected. Can you go get me 30 links a month? I'm like, oh, shit, no. Let's do something


big, right? My second pitch I'm going to blast through because of time. But we pitched a


client on naming a car. We realized that a lot of people like to name their cars. That's


my hoopty. My 76 Buick Electra 225, deuce and a quarter. Found out that 83% of people


at SIR named their cars. So I've got to go through all this. Because I'm almost good.


But it's funny, the client went, well, how many clicks can we get in position four? And


I was so pissed and I just didn't believe at all what they were saying. I'm like, this


ain't going to work. So we built a PowerPoint. It's on SlideShare.


25 ways to get your client to stop asking you what the CTR of a position is. I was pissed


so I decided to do something to try to help the community a little bit. Bitly CTR is broken.


Shoot, I practiced this. I was on time. All right. So launch your own stuff. It's something


that we've done. We did this. I couldn't even add these slides in because I'm already over


time. But I have some really interesting data on it. Hopefully I'll share with you guys


pretty soon. But I'm going to share with you guys something


that we launched. See, at SIR, I want to build shit that helps people. And if I'm going to


say I want to do that, then I've got to put my own money where my mouth is.


So we built Destination Layover. When you go to this Web site, it will ask you for your


GPS. You say yes. It will tell you, oh, you're at so and so airport. Do you want to stay


in the airport or go out? For me, I love to go out of the airport and explore if I've


got a long layover. This came from research I was doing in Cairo. 12-hour layover in Cairo,


what do I do? And I found nothing. So I said let's build this and fix this for as much


of the Web as we can. So it looks like this. It adds 40 minutes automatically for you to


get your bag and to get in the taxi line. And then as you click the things you want


to do, it starts adding time and tells you how long it's going to take for you to go


and then to come back to the airport so that you don't miss your flight but that you can


do something really cool and enjoy yourself when you're there.


Client rejected it. We built it, launched it. Boom. The links are going to come. And


we're helping people. This is about helping people. And it looks awesome on the mobile.


So when all you guys are flying home today or tomorrow and people have long flights like


GM Luca, maybe you can find something to do in whatever city you have a layover in, bro,


because there are no directs to where you live from here. And then we launch it over


on Google on Maps so then you can also get all the traffic and everything to make sure


you don't miss your flight. It's just helping people looking for something. Oh, my God,


that jumped really quick. All right. So the last thing I'm going to leave you guys with


is an example of how social can work for you because it's worked so well for me. So we


dropped Resonator to do all of our applicant tracking. And I emailed them and was like,


oh, shit, I don't have all the old data. Seven weeks after I dropped them, no incentive to


help me. They responded to me on Twitter within a day. I didn't get back to them so they found


me in their customer records and emailed me. And Emily said she'll be there in five to


seven business days. She'll get it for me. Then I emailed our Emily internally and said


I want to give them more of our money because I like the way those guys operate. I dropped


them. I dumped them and came back like the bad boyfriend, like, I'm so sorry. I still


don't want to date you, but you got my shit still. And they were like, here's your shit.


I cleaned it up for you. Here you go. And now we're back on their platform. So it's


an example of that doesn't show up in your ranking reports, guys. Taking care of the


numbers big. SEO that focuses on the last step, dead, guys. Or the first step is dead.


Remember, follow the money. Lester Freeman told us best. And your titles won't matter


because all that really matters are your customers. And the last slide I'm going to leave you


with are all the people who have helped me put this together because I'm just a mouthpiece


for a lot of their work. So if you like some of the stuff you saw, I'd ask you to follow


some of these guys as well. Some of them still work at CIR. Some of them like Steph don't


work at CIR anymore. But they were all part of helping this presentation. So I'm going


to leave that up. Sorry, Erica. All right. Thank you. Thanks, guys. All right. Sorry,


I'm a little bit over.


No worries. We are over time. 220 slides in 60 minutes. If people want to talk to you


after this, you're going to be around a little bit?


I'm around for a little while, guys, but I want to go home and see my wife and my dog.


I miss them because they couldn't make this trip. So I'm leaving at, like, 6 o'clock.


So I'll be around up until then and I'll help you out until then.


All right. Will Reynolds, thank you very much.


MozCon 2015 - 19 - The Time to Do the Web Right Is Incredibly Short with Wil Reynolds

Awesome. All right. You're number five. Thanks so much for having me back. I'm relaxed now.


I'm wearing sandals and shit. All right. So I want to chat with you guys about something


that's just near and dear to my heart. I'm watching companies that I love working with,


clients of mine fail. I'm watching them get disrupted. I'm watching them lose. And I'm


watching my team and myself not have the tools to turn that around for them. So that's what


we're going to talk about today is it's an inspiration, unfortunately, from a bunch of


pain that I've seen a lot of people in businesses go through as their businesses fail, sometimes


because they thought a lot more about search than they thought about people. So we're fully


aware. I feel like everything you've seen today, like seriously, like you watch what


Marty talks about, then you watch what Marshall talks about, and you watch what Cindy talks


about. And you're like, my God, when am I going to start working on any of this? Thank


God Marta told us how to save a little bit of time, right? So I see disruptions everywhere.


I stay paranoid about what's going to disrupt me. And you know what I realized is I come


to a lot of conferences like this, and I share a lot of time with all of you. And I do love


that. But what I realized is I'm not learning marketing if I don't stop and go back a ways.


And I went back to the 1890s and read a book by this guy, Claude Hopkins, a book called


scientific advertising. It's funny, you would think, oh, well, you're on stage and you speak


of all these conferences and people come to hear you hear you hear what you believe and


think. I like being a student sometimes, you know, so I decided to go back to the 1890s


and read this book written 1890 this book scientific, scientific advertising. And then


I read his other book my life in advertising. And in one of those books, I forget which


one, he has this quote. And it's funny, it talks about understanding human nature. What


is understanding human nature, and how people are led to buy have anything to do with getting


more rankings on Google? Nothing. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that traffic


are people. Clicks are people looking for things. The question is whether or not we are


going to help them find what they are looking for. When you understand human needs, you


can get way up in the funnel in ways that other people can't. For instance, I clicked on an


ad, a paid ad on Twitter from T-Mobile. Anybody here from T-Mobile? Okay. They do some amazing


advertising. So they put an ad up to me on Twitter that said, do you want your employees


to think you're the best boss this year? I was like, I hope so. Click. And I clicked


on it. I was a little fearful, like if it was going to be like, wrong, you suck. They


were like, no. But no, I clicked on the ad. And what it said is it showed me a business


plan. That if SEER pays for our employees' cell phones, then their whole family gets


half off of their bill if they move to T-Mobile. Now, was I searching for business plans? Mobile,


wherever? No. But the need that I had is I want to be perceived and to have the feeling


with my team members that I care about them. And that I'm trying to leverage what our company


can benefit as well as ours. So, you know, when you go back to understanding what people


need or what they aspire to, you start realizing that understanding how people make decisions


is an undisruptible skill. You don't have to worry about mobile coming along. You don't


have to worry about dark social. Because you understand how people make decisions about


the things they want and need. If Google went away tomorrow and you spent the last two or


three years understanding how people make purchasing decisions, it wouldn't matter to


you, would it? Because you would just apply that understanding to email or whatever was


getting hot, Snapchat, I don't know. So that's my belief. And actually, the hard part, it's


hard for you to say this, is that that is a greater skill than understanding how Google


works. I'm sorry. Today I'm spending more and more time reading books about psychology


and how people make decisions than I am trying to understand about how Google works. Because


what I can guarantee is there's a lot of disruption that's going to happen. And I want to align


myself with old school stuff that worked in the 1890s. Not stuff that worked like three


days ago on Google because you found this trick about using double dashes and URLs or


some crazy shit. So, I think the best marketers out there understand people's needs first.


Here's an example of a growth hacker. So, I was traveling in Turkey and I just talked


to a guy from Turkey recently. And you know, it's funny how we talk about companies being


disruptive when in actuality it's called just understanding your customer and their needs.


This guy stands in traffic on your way from the airport to some city I was traveling in.


And he knows what you're probably going through because the traffic is horrible. First thing


he realizes is you probably have a kid in the car, you're annoyed. You want to get that


kid a toy and shut him up. He's got your back. What's the other thing that happens in a car


sometimes when you've been sitting in traffic for an hour and a half trying to get to your


airport or trying to get to the airport or your hotel? You might get a little hungry.


He's got some nasty snacks, but you've all eaten nasty snacks sometimes when you're freaking


hungry. If you're in that car and you've been sitting there for an hour and a half and you


start sniffing your armpits and going, is that me? He'll help you out with your car.


And then you've been sitting there on your phone so long texting your battery died and


you go, oh crap, I don't have any juice. He's got you. Now you can communicate. That's a


freaking growth hacker if you ask me. That's some real marketing shit right there, right?


That's understanding human needs. This guy would probably do better marketing than probably


about 90% of the people in this room because he doesn't care what Google thinks. He cares


what people think. If I took away Google, 90% of this room would never come up with


that strategy. You go, oh my God, what am I going to do? Learn what people want and


then apply your skills to that. Dr. Pete, I love Dr. Pete's presentations are scary,


but they're also awesome. So the question for me is how do you handle disruption? You're


going to, it's like you've got two options. It's like black sheep. You can get with this


or you can get with that. When disruption comes to you, you can do this.


2010 Kings of Leon had to pull out of a show to bird turds. Apparently in St. Louis, Missouri


a few days ago, the band canceled their show three songs in due to being bombarded by pigeon


droppings. A statement from management read quote, so sorry, St. Louis, we had to bail


pigeon in Jared's mouth. Too unsanitary to continue. End quote. A Twitter post from drummer


Nathan Followell read quote, don't take it out on Jared. It's the venues fall. You may


enjoy being on, but we don't. Sorry for all who traveled many months. Fuck Kings of Leon.


Okay. Sorry Emma. So I'm not a big fan of Kings of Leon. So when they're, when the birds


are pooping, like a bird started pooping right now, I'd power through that shit. I'd be like


this guy. Seattle in the house, right? Dave Grohl broke his leg rocking out at a concert


in Switzerland was laying on the ground and the only thing he could think of in that moment


was I'm going to be back. I'm going to fix my leg and I'm going to be back as they are


carting him out. He is asking people on his team to play cover songs until he gets back.


He came back and he rocked out. Your brand has the option to do that with every customer


you get. Either you can be Kings of Leon, who is the fucking venues for people shit


in our mouths. We're out. Or you can be Dave Grohl. I'm going to be Dave Grohl, right?


I'm going to break some shit because I'm going to rock out, but I'm not leaving you behind,


right? People feel differently about those two instances. Imagine if you heard there


were a bunch of birds flying around and you had tickets at the same time to see a Kings


of Leon concert or to see a Foo Fighters concert. You know where your bets should be. See, for


me, your competitors, I've seen this happen. It's sad to watch a company that you love


to help and you're helping them grow and watch them fail. Your competitors are lying in wait


and I'm going to talk to you about the speed at which they will pounce on your ass and


sink their teeth into you and turn you into this. The speed by which you can become a


carcass on the internet is phenomenal. And I've got examples in pain from that. I believe


that if we don't disrupt ourselves, someone else will. I think Rand talked about this


earlier in the opening. I'm going to show you some examples of companies, but the one


thing I want to remind you of is that for the most part, loyalty is pretty hard to disrupt.


It's like having your little dog next to you. Who I miss my dog a ton right now? But I got


my son with me, so you know, can't put everybody on the plane anymore. So smart companies,


they disrupt themselves. Apple, super innovative, we love them. Yeah, right? You know all that


cool stuff, don't look at me in the elevator, cool. When it comes to music, ooh that iTunes


thing was awesome, right? And now it's like ooh that radio, oof. What are we going to


do? See when you get, I think the time to be most paranoid is when you're sitting at


the top. Because you only have one place to go. Google now disrupting themselves. How


can we make sure that that doesn't happen to us? Facebook said, shoot, that whole sharing


images thing, we kind of missed it, let's just buy somebody now for billions. And we


all go, oh my god, how did that happen? What I think is really neat is Amazon Prime has


a 74% conversion rate. Damn, being in e-commerce is hard. Amazon Prime has a 74% conversion


rate. Think about it for yourself. You Google some shit, you see an Amazon link, you have


Prime, do you click on anybody else? The echo to me is just amazing. What's really amazing


is Amazon has decided to launch their own Black Friday, disrupting themselves, less


reliance on Google. So as marketers, I want you all to be thinking how to disrupt yourselves.


Many of you work for great businesses and great organizations, and I would hate to see


some of the things that I've seen happen to you. Too often are we being asked for a 2010


strategy in 2015. I had somebody do an analysis for me right before this presentation. 50%


of the leads that have come in to see this year mention the word link building. Got to


get that number down. 50%, well why is that a bad thing, Will? You guys are good at getting


links. No, I want to be the company that helps customers find great stuff, which I believe


might build links, and I'm going to show you something that we've recently gotten ranked


pretty well with no outreach and no links. I want to help people solve problems, and


I have to believe that that will get me the links and the other things that I'd like to


see my clients attain. The problem is when you prioritize channel over the problems of


your audience, this may very well happen to you. It scares the ever living crap out of


me. The problem with marketing is that it amplifies, and if what you are marketing is


crap like the Segway, there's no amount of marketing that can fix that. And I think we


have to remind ourselves of that. Or if you're making picnic pants. Nobody really, like,


you know what, maybe that guy in Guatemala or wherever I took that picture, like maybe


that guy figured it out, but picnic pants? It's horrible. Or if anybody ever owned a


mid 90s Saab 93, remember this freaking cup holder that you couldn't even hit the fucking


buttons on your own radio because somebody decided to put it right in the front of the


freaking buttons and the timer? Wonder what time it is. Let me remove my Slurpee out so


I can see what time it is. Horrible. There's no amount of marketing that can fix that.


And I think a lot of us are being asked to fix people's bad businesses and they're saying


go get me more links and stuff. Maybe we should say no to some of that crap. And to be honest


with you, I've been doing this for a long time. Marketing that doesn't focus on people


is kind of getting a little old to me. It's cool to think about the psychology. Like I


find myself when I'm reading a book lately, it's always about how people make decisions.


Whether it's nudge or switch or predictably irrational, I don't care. But I love the process


of how people go about making the decisions they make. Like when you pick up an orange,


this is an example in Harry Beckwith selling the invisible. When you pick up an orange,


many people make a decision as to how good that orange is by the color of the orange.


When that has nothing to do with what's on the inside. That talks about how people make


decisions. Now with that, could you apply that kind of understanding of people's decision


making to search, paid search, social, email, billboard, could you apply that to some other


stuff? Understanding that people sometimes make decisions on things they see that have


nothing to do with what they actually want. That to me is exciting. I'm going to try to


speed through the beginning of my slides so that I'm going to rush at the end. So digitally


when I think of people's needs, we're lucky in that they usually start off with some kind


of box. Not always. And I'm going to show you examples of that. But it's nice, thank


you for offering this Pinterest, you know, drop down what people are looking for. Pinterest


to me is a database of intentions and aspirations. And as a marketer and a brand, I want to be


there. I want to be connected to the things you aspire to. Not always just the things


you search because you need it right now. It'd be nice to have a combination of both


of those. So the choice is yours. Red pill, blue pill. I want all of you to be content


heroes. And it's funny how often we produce content that really doesn't make us very heroic.


We all saw Marty, hero. And the second time you're going to see this slide in the last


two days. What's interesting is when Rand and Marty sat down, let me tell you what brand


is. Marty has brand. You know why? Because the last six weeks I've been spending doing


nothing but understanding how Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn advertising work. So


I've shut down doing a lot of other stuff and I focused on that. When it came time for


me to decide to start understanding it, I did a search on YouTube for Marty's video.


I didn't want just any content somebody produced on this topic. I went to Marty's first. And


in doing that six weeks ago, in this example, he's talking about who needs batteries, external


batteries. I'm going, people at conferences need external batteries. And the thing that


Marty's realizing that many of us have not is that for most of us in SEO, we go, okay,


you sell external batteries. All right, cool. Let's type it in. Right? I love this. Don't


hit enter. That's me. You know, I say that all the time and it's like, okay, now these


are the words we can rank for. I can build these assets from that. There's a problem


with that. There's a difference between who needs external batteries and who searches


for external batteries. And if you do search and you think your job is to rank things in


little boxes, you realize you're only solving half of that equation. I'm going to give you


a really good example of how I ended up on this stage that will show you that, you know,


this whole like search thing, that versus brand, brand search. I'll show you. When people


travel, they probably want external batteries. You can't take pictures and send them out


to people if your phone is dead. So instead of it being versus, how about we look at that


as an and. And if I said if we do both of these, then one of them takes away people


typing stuff into little boxes, doesn't it? Now ask yourself, if you looked at this year


and the time you've invested in understanding how to market to people, if I told you I wanted


you to do both of these, you probably have a lot of expertise on the people who are searching


in the little boxes and not so much on the people who may be influenced way up the funnel.


So how do we get started? The first thing I think everybody here needs to do, and I


just believe in this, I like brands who plant their flag on something. We got to raise our


flag on what we believe. And you're going to see something I believe pretty hard. It


might cost me a good amount of money doing it. You got to raise your flag and you got


to get super loud, which is what I'm doing today. One day I asked myself, how can I begin


the process of getting people even on my team to think differently about our role in search?


So we started giving these tiles out to people. And I've got like 200 of them still to give


out to all of you who want them. There's a lot more than 200 of you. So when I run out,


don't come after me. But what I want people in the day they start to see this, how about


we become the people who help people to find what they are looking for, not the people


who just get rankings. Same day to day tactics, different way of thinking about how those


tactics are deployed. How would it feel if we were the people who help people to find


solutions? That sounds nice. I like that. I help people find what they're looking for,


kind of like a concierge. I'm looking for a good stake. Let's go over here. I talked


about that last year. What's interesting is that changing your mind can just lead to amazing


outcomes. What do I mean by that? I read, there's a book called The Upside of Stress


by Kelly McGonigal, really good book about stress management. And one of the examples


she leads in with is this study from Harvard. And what they found is they took two groups


of maids in Boston. And this group, they said, exercise is good. We're going to get you all


together in the break room. We're going to tell you that exercise, good thing. And then


we're going to go to this other group and we're going to tell them, do you realize that


the work you're doing every day is the equivalent of like running a 5K every week? And then


they went back six months later and evaluated how that intervention affected two different


groups of people. Guess what happened? These people, same weight. These people on average


lost like eight pounds. Their heart rate had changed. Their blood pressure went down. They


never changed what they did. They were just told that what they were doing was different.


So what if I told you that today, those of you out there that are hustling to build great


content and help that content to be found because you believe it might actually help


somebody somewhere who's lost solve a problem, you're being the concierge for the whole internet


versus, yeah, get rankings. So how about we tell ourselves for a second that we're those


people? Now again, you can choose to use your skills to get people to great content or you


can use your skills to make them get to crap content. And I'm going to show you the outcome


of the two of those. But I think we can begin to deflect some of the disruptions that are


coming for us by using the skills we have. You saw Marty do it. Marty's got that stuff


lit. Understanding people's needs and aspirations is a great place to be as a marketer. There


is no disruption for that. But we've got to start thinking of channels first or we have


to stop thinking of channels first because we're tackling so many customer problems with


SEO first. That strategy is running dry. I think so many of us are winning at search


and losing at people. What do I mean by that? Look at some of the stuff we produce at scale.


You want examples? Okay. I got examples for you where we think we're winning and our users


are like, think about, that's us. You know what's one of the most interesting dichotomies


is we'll go out there and put shit out on the internet all day long to get rankings


and then when we click on that same shit, we're pissed off that an SEO tricked us into


clicking on their top ranking. Oh, man, I got tricked into this crappy SEO crap. Wait


a second. I do that for all my clients. Here's your first example. If this was your brand's


growth and your brand name, this is the brand name of a company, you'd probably feel pretty


good about your company until you saw this, which is the brand name of one of your competitors.


Company A had an eight year, six year head start. The other competitor launched and beat


them out in 18 months. Beat them in 18 months. One said, hey, we're going to focus on this


like we all do too much. We're going to focus on ranking for vacation rentals. Boom. Number


one, bitches. VRBO got you. We got number one. Did my job. I don't need to go to MozCon


this year. I know all that shit. I got number one for vacation rentals. Yeah, but then the


other company decided to focus on this. Can you imagine being on that beach right now


in Nicaragua? I can. That's awesome. That's where I want to be when I think about my vacation.


I don't want to think about the letter V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N. Enter. They focus on how it feels to be relaxed


or to go on an adventure or try something new. And you know what they're getting for


all that? All that focusing on user wants and needs. They're ranked number nine for


vacation rentals. And the good part is they don't give a shit. Because what they realize


is that at some point, winning those hearts and minds is going to win the SERP. But if


they keep focusing on the SERP first, it may not work. I'm going to show you by going back


through two examples of those two companies. So by now you know I'm talking about Airbnb.


This page, tons of social shares and links. How? Look at it. Go ahead and drop it into


BuzzSumo. You'll see. I don't even know what a water cooler exists. Water color? Where


is that? I don't even know. But that doesn't look like a page that typically gets thousands


of shares, does it? Okay. But what if a company told you that you could stay in Maracana Stadium


for a night with all your friends? That also got like a bunch of social shares. Seems plausible,


right? Stay in a stadium, go to Brazil, we'll put you up in a room inside the stadium. That


seems like something that might get some social shares and some links. But what's more interesting


is even when they decide to do content, people are voting with their searches. God, I have


said this so many times. Look at your branded search. I don't care how much content you


write. If nobody ever searches for content for direct keywords with your brand, you ain't


doing something right. I don't care how much time you put into content marketing. What


I care about is how many people it helps. Because you know what? When you find something


that's great, don't you sometimes go, I don't want just any neighborhood guy to London.


I want Airbnbs. Well, why would you put Airbnb on the side of that? Maybe it's because you


believe that their stuff's going to be better. Surely don't see VRBO there. How long is that


number one ranking going to win hearts and minds? I'm not sure. Let me show you something


that an SEO put together for Airbnb. Video. There we go. To be honest, when I first heard


about this story, I didn't quite believe it because it was such a profound story of human


connection and human transformation. When I first heard the story, it was actually in


an internal meeting where I instantly got goosebumps all over my arms. I sent in this


story to Airbnb. I'm a little short on time. You see Dennis G. That guy's an SEO. He talked


about getting goosebumps by a story he heard from a customer. Most of us get goosebumps


when we're number one. Now, how did his boss, John Mendenhall, ask him to, hey, well, you


want to do this story from this person and build all this content? How are you going


to go about proving that it was worth it? These were the three goals in priority order


which he was given. He got 200 media hits. Their piece of content on the Berlin Wall


was 2.2% of all conversations across the web on the Berlin Wall. Obviously, let's just


assume that SEO did well, but obviously he doesn't work there anymore, so we can't share


those numbers. I want him to come back to Maaz Khan and present this next year if you


guys will have him because let me show you what he put together.


Berlin, 1987. My father was a guard on the west side of the Berlin Wall while another


man guarded the east. Eventually, the wall came down, but even after moving away, my


father carried a piece of it with him. While I grew up, he regaled over...


You got to stop it. You got to keep going. First time I put video in. Watch it yourselves.


You can Google that. You can't see me in like five minutes when I got to get off stage.


It cost him over $2 million. The head of global SEO pitched something to his boss that cost


$2.2 million for one campaign. That guy's got to get up on stage and tell us how he


did that, doesn't he? So please, Maaz, try to bring him back because he's pitching content


that costs more than a Bugatti. So the interesting thing to me is that once


algorithms understand what we love, which they're working on, what's going to happen


to VRBO's number one ranking? By the time they realize that, oh, the algorithm has shifted


and now we need to write content that people care about with our brand. Oh, shit, Airbnb's


all over it. Too late. The most interesting thing is if you're number one for a keyword


and you're high-fiving, but the brand that you're going up against is smoking you, it's


interesting to watch that the word Airbnb is searched for more than vacation rentals.


You're winning the wrong battle, home skillet. We laugh, but we don't check this, do we?


We go, number one still got it. Pop your collar. No, actually, you're getting your ass kicked


because Airbnb is about to become a synonym for the word that you love. And then what


are you going to do? Nothing. Again, the choice is yours. You have the choice to produce great


content, but you have to fight for it. Fight for the right to produce content that makes


somebody happy when they get it, not to just shovel that shit off your plate so you can


write the next piece of content. Let me give you an example of two different


companies that have chosen to produce content to solve the same problem.


Yeah, it feels great to be on a United flight, doesn't it? Here from Jeff Smizek, on behalf


of my 80,000 slaves, I mean, coworkers, the guy kind of looks a little bit like Mr. Burns.


But anyway, another company had to also produce a safety video, and it looked a little bit


more like this. You can watch that later.


Before we move into the stratosphere, see, I watch that video. You can ask my team. I


watch that video once a month-ish, no more than I go once a quarter, because it's my


inspiration to remind me to not settle for what I'm asked for, but to aspire to something


greater, because both of those companies could have shown up and done the easy thing. United


did, and we all know how we feel about United. The reality is that travel kind of feels more


like this, and when I get on a United plane, Jeff Smizek's thinking that, and Branson's


thinking this. Nobody clapped for Jeff Smizek, and that's why even on a platform where people


do nothing but complain, people say great things about Virgin. But the brands that we


admire, they're willing to go the extra mile for their customers. You are not going the


extra mile for your customer when you write shit content that ranks well. You are misleading


them. How does that feel? I've done it for a long time, and I'm sick of doing it, and


you will eventually get disrupted. Another industry that I think is making a major comeback


is TV. TV? TV? I think TV's rising. I'm going to show you why. First thing is, I'm paranoid


about everything, killing market share for search. Winston Churchill said it best. The


dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety. It feels safe to be in search right


now. Content marketing, it's growing. The smart people are paranoid. Airbnb got to do


that, got to get to do amazing commercials, but they started off by having their audience


produce a bunch of Vine videos for them. That's how they're eventually getting budgets. But


if I asked your audience to go out and record a bunch of Vine videos, do you think you'd


get a thousand entries for your company? If you're not winning hearts and minds, all you


got left is what's in that box. And now Airbnb is producing amazing commercials. Now I'm


not going to do the whole Dollar Shave Club, check them out, they're an awesome thing.


What I am going to tell you is that they're doing TV commercials. TV commercials that


are like this. Excuse me, do you have the keys for the razor case? No. Can anyone help


me get some razors? No. God, where does the time go? Now, I show you that example for


one reason. Dollar Shave Club understands needs and frustrations. See what you can produce


when you think of needs and frustrations? Has anybody in here ever traveled to another


city, went to go get a razor, and you're like, are you freaking serious? They're locked behind


this freaking wall like as if you got Fort Knox or some gold or some weed or something


behind them. Isn't it interesting what your mind might go if you think about frustrations


and customer needs and wants? You're never going to see that in a search box by not hitting


enter on Google. And of course, what I love about Dollar Shave Club is they reinforce


this stuff on their brand at every touch point that they can. That's why they outrank Gillette.


MailChimp is doing billboards. Bill freaking boards. And there's no call to action on them.


There's no attribution. There's no GA. There's not that other cool shit we've been hearing


about all day. It's just a billboard. And they do it over and over again. And they don't


even put their freaking URL on it. How the freak did they get to do that? Raeanne, you're


probably friends with the whole internet. Get them to show up, too. I'd love to hear


how they convince marketing to do a billboard. What's really cool is that after they're done


with the billboard, they pull them down, they turn all the stuff into bags and give it out


to their customers. This was made just to make customers smile. That's it. You know


what kind of marketing you get to do if people invest in making people smile? Old media sure


as hell ain't getting it. I was up with my son one night and I was fast forwarding through


something horrible. And I realized I couldn't even fast forward on on demand. Huh? What?


Can't fast forward? What are you talking about? Why may it not be available? Don't get it.


But new media, we're not getting it either. We already went through this. In 2002, we


all had pop-up blockers. And today, we still have the same shit. It's funny how people


like to do overlays and talk about conversion rates and shit. In 2002, if you thought about


what people needed and wanted, they would have told you they didn't want that shit.


We got software to block that crap and now today it's common knowledge to pop shit up


over people so they can sign up for your newsletter before you've even read one piece of news


to know if you would want to. God, I wish everybody would get rid of those. But they


work. But they piss off a lot of people, too. You just don't know it because they leave


your freaking site. So let me give you an example.


These pop-ups won't go away Might as well scroll sideways


For my Citizen Cope fans in the house The craziest thing is that I tried to edit


that out of the video because I didn't realize what song I was playing while I was doing


my screen grab and it ended up being Citizen Cope sideways. How awesome is that?


Seren fucking dippity. It's like, now I can't even leave your site unless I'm going to scroll


left to right because God forbid I want to leave, you're just going to pop shit up on


me until I die or my finger goes through enough fatigue that I eventually sign up for your


shitty newsletter. Keep going. The reason why I think these companies are turning to


TV, if you watch CNBC's like late night reality shows like The Profit and The Consumed, you're


watching a lot of digital companies turn into people doing TV.


W.E.B. Du Bois said it best, I like to go old school. Remember, I'm talking about going


way back. Be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become. What


a powerful statement. Just because you are something today doesn't mean you have to be


at tomorrow, but you got to be ready to give up that old shit we've been doing. It's crazy


because I can't believe the stuff we get asked to do still.


So I went back to 1900. Kieran Flanagan, Kieran Bass, sorry. If you know him, he gave me this


example. So it's the year 1900 and the Michelin Company hires you to help them sell more tires


with content. What do you do? You got none of this. So you produce this guide. 1900, they


were producing content. If I take your Google and Pinterest away and I told you to use some


great content, what would you do? Because rankings aren't going to be the value. You're


going to produce this guide. And how is that going to make money for anybody? Well, it's


for chauffeurs. And people are driving along the French countryside with guys that look


like this. And I want this guy to know where to take people. Because as he wears his tires


down with my brand all over them and drives more miles, I make more money. That's content


marketing. And it doesn't matter if it ranks or not. Now, does it? Because you're understanding


needs. People want to explore the new restaurant. It's funny how whenever a new restaurant opens


up, people just want to go to it. Like it could be crap. I'm like, hey, hon, why don't we go to


that restaurant we always know is great and amazing? No, let's sit in line for three hours and


go to this other restaurant. That's crap. They understood the need. And they're still


doing it today. They can pivot into apps if they want to because they built a brand. I


took two pictures at a presentation once in Brazil. And it's funny that as I was looking


at pictures to use in the slide deck, these two came up. And I felt like my whole career


has been I've been looking down at the link building mistakes and mom, I'm talking about


link building. And I failed to just look up and fix the aperture and realize that I was


talking to people, faces. I was thinking about links. And I was looking at the links that I was


building. And I forgot that those links need to be clicked on by people who are hoping that when


they click on it, they can actually scroll up and down instead of left to right. Look at this.


It ranks. If anybody here has ever moved from Dallas, Texas to Chicago, the last thing you


need to know is that Chicago is also known as the second city. What the freak does that have to


do with me knowing how to move? Ranks. Yep. Problem is I think it does brand damage. We saw


Matt Brown talk about this earlier when we all laughed at WikiHow. Ha ha ha. Yeah, well,


that's a lot of us too in this room. When we do crap work and it ranks well, people click on


it. And then after a while, they stop clicking on it. But that trust is hard to disrupt. You


know how you know trust is hard to disrupt? Let me show you two brands and tell you if they


both went into the pacemaker industry, which one would you let crack open your chest and put a


heart in? Right. Brand. Trust. This shit matters. On a smaller scale, it's a shame that people


write crap like this back to see her. Oh, my God, thank you for not requiring an email to


download. Why should I? I'm going to win hearts and minds by sharing everything I know. I'll get


your email later. You're going to want to give me your email later. But I can't expect that to


happen if I don't give you something first. I hate being up here with no time. All right. So I


always show a sample of RevZilla because they're an affiliate, they do great marketing. This is


what happens when you type in your brand into YouTube and you don't make any product. They


don't make product. So how are so many people searching for their gloves if they don't make


gloves? Their reviews are that good. Anybody here who rides a motorcycle knows the reviews are


so good that they're searching for not just glove reviews, they're looking for RevZillas because


the brand means something. The brand means quality review, not we got it ranked well. Our


journey today and how we got here. How many of us did, you know, obviously I'm here, Kanye,


Fire on the Sides, great shot last year. Thank you, Maz. Nobody typed this in to get here, did


they? Anybody type in SEO conference to show up here today, stand up. I bet you also own a


Nook. Okay. Did anybody type in Internet marketing conference? Anyone? Don't be embarrassed. I


got a bunch of stuff I'm going to give out later down right here at the corner of the stage. I'll


give you two. Didn't think so. Anybody rub a genie and have a bunch of smoke come out and go,


you should go and see Rand and the Maz team? No. So how the freak did we end up here? Because


this company has beliefs. And whether you like them or not, you know where they plant their


freaking flag, don't you? Gender neutral bathrooms. We're planting our flag here at Maz. And if


you don't like it, you can go pee somewhere else. Love that. Love that. And that's reputation.


And that is trust. And that is why no matter what I Google, if I see Maz anywhere in my scroll,


I'm skipping over all the high ranking mother fuckers who likely put some kind of pop up to


get my email because these guys have always believed in just giving us everything. And they


know that we'll just like stay subscribed forever and ever and ever. Smart. All right. So I think


it's time for us to take a blank piece of paper and a beer and a pen to what SEO is going to be.


When I talked to Rand a while back at the church at our last event at our office, I don't sure if


this is still true, but when we did CEO swap, I found out that like 20% of Maz's budget for


marketing isn't tied to a specific ROI. Is that still true? If you take anything away from today,


let's start making that 2% at your company. I know you probably work for some hard driving asshole.


It's okay. But try to get 2% that is not tied to ROI. You'll never create serendipity if you don't.


And also for me, I like to stay paranoid. So as I wrap up, this is a client's data. It's a million


dollars from Pinterest and 1.52 million assisted from Pinterest. And I thought as a search company,


my client is making this much money from Pinterest. Why the freak are they going to need search in


three or four years? Because they want it to be the database of people's aspirations. And they


figured it out and we want to help them. So we built a guide to Pinterest. But I don't just want


to talk about the guide that we built. I want to talk about how we took a whole team of people to


figure this out. So we got a dev on board with Steven. And then we got a couple of designers with


Kirsten and Kristen. Kristen's dad's name is Randy Bigness. Isn't that awesome? His name is Randy


Bigness. It's like it's such a porn star name. Anyway, then we got Ali and Audrey on PPC. And


then we got our content team. And then we got a video guy. Kevin's the dude that did Hey Rand,


take a look at my site a couple years ago. You know, work sincere. Who the fuck knew? And then


Teresa and Andrew and Hannah. And we got all these different people in a room and said, let's produce


something that people will really want. It's got no links. We've done no outreach. It ranks really


well. And it helps people every day. And it's going to keep doing it forever, ever, forever,


ever, because we poured our hearts and souls into this thing. And it actually helps people when we


look at how far they scroll and what they engage with. So as I'm wrapping up, because I'm not going


to finish the rest of this. There's a lesson here is that the best marketing is rarely created by


one discipline. The stuff that Perna was showing earlier, we got to get better at working with


people in these other divisions. Because do you think that Dennis G produced that cartoon himself?


No, he paid somebody hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. I'm going to show you an example


of what happens with a company that places hearts and minds at the top. And then I'll leave you


alone. All right. Has anyone ever lost their dog? How does it feel?


It feels like shit. You're worried. You're concerned. Your dog is out there in the world,


in a dangerous world. And pedigree, basically, when your dog gets lost and you post that through


this app, buys ads with a picture of your dog on the GDN in your zip code so people can see that


it's your dog. I've had three clients over the last few years in the dog space. We have pitched


shit like this and failed. And it kills me because I think they're going to get fucking destroyed.


Because that's a company that cares about people losing their dogs. If you lose your dog, I want


to attach to that because you're going to be nervous and scared. And as a marketer, I want to


show you that I care about something more than just you buying more kibbles and bits. But the


problem is, is on none of those three clients we worked with, did they have the faith or the


belief? Or maybe we didn't convince them well enough that that's what they should have done.


Instead, we got to ask questions like, why does this other company have the word in their URL


like two times? Should we do that to all our URLs and just make everything 404 for three days? No,


we should build something that's going to win over hearts and minds. So when the last thing I'm


going to leave you with, because now I am running out, is what it looks like when the old and new


combined. Watch this magic that is about to happen on your screen. And then I'll take whatever


questions we have left. Wayfair.com is the online site for home shopping. Just Google Wayfair My


Sofa to update and refresh your living room. Or Google Wayfair My Area Rug to browse any style


from our huge selection, including the rug that's just right for you. Or Google...


Good luck beating them out for area rugs. They're doing TV to get branded search on words


associated with rooms. What are you doing if you compete with them? You got that? Because that I'm


about to have a client that space. I'm like, we're gonna get freaking destroyed if we don't


hustle. Don't do this. When we moved out of the church, somebody built us flyers. I don't even


know this person is. They built us flyers that actually matched our brand and our tone and our


images and everything else. And now we use them. It took them some time. We know it's relevant for


them. And it looked good. So as I wrap up, I just want to remind you all come up here, take a tile


from me, I got hundreds of them. I want you to clip it to your freaking keychain. And I want you


to see it as a reminder of what it feels like to find something when you've lost it. That's what


people on the internet are doing when they're searching. They're looking for an answer. And you


can either be Jeff Smizek or Richard Branson every time you put your fingers to those keys and


produce great content. I think Google gonna disrupt one of those two groups. And hopefully you're


on my side and that that little tile reminds you every day to do that over this. Thank you so much.


I appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. Okay, unfortunately, we do have to get people out of


here. So we don't really have the time for the q&a. I did have one really interesting question


though. You love you love reading any good book recommendations for people right now. It's the


ones I gave away years ago. I actually reread switch. So switch, I read switch, and then I


downloaded the audio book of switch. So when I go running once a quarter, I re listen to switch


because it gets me in the right mindset. So switch is the book just check me out on Goodreads.


You'll see what I'm reading. But switch is the one that's awesome. We do have to get out of


here. Any chance that you can make yourself available for just a few? No, I got like 200


freaking things to give away. So I got to come on up and ask more questions. That's going to do


How Links in Headers, Footers, Content, and Navigation Can Impact SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


This week we're going to chat about links in headers and footers in navigation versus


content and how that can affect both internal and external links and sort of the link equity


and link value that they pass to your website or to another website if you're linking out


to them.


So I'm going to use Candy Japan here.


They recently crossed a million dollars in sales.


Very proud of Candy Japan.


They sell these nice boxes of random assortments of Japanese candy that come to your house.


Their website is actually remarkably simplistic.


They have some footer links.


They have some links in the content but not a whole lot else.


But I'm going to imagine them with a few more links in here just for our purposes.


It turns out that there are a number of interesting items when it comes to internal linking.


So for example, some on-page links matter more and carry more weight than other kinds.


And if you are smart and use these across your entire site, you can get some incremental


or potentially some significant benefits depending on how you do it.


So first off, good to know that content links tend to matter more just broadly speaking


than navigation links.


And that shouldn't be too surprising.


If I have a link down here in the content of the page pointing to my Choco Puffs or


my gummies page, that might actually carry more weight in Google's eyes than if I point


to it in my navigation.


Now this is not universally true but observably it seems to be the case.


So when something's in the navigation, it's almost always universally in that navigation.


When something's in here, it's often only specifically in here.


So a little tough to tell cause and effect, but we can definitely see this when we get


to external links.


I'll talk about that in a sec.


Links in footers often get devalued.


So if there's a link that you've got in your footer but you don't have it in your primary


navigation whether that's on the side or the top or in the content of the page, a link


down here may not carry as much weight internally.


In fact, sometimes it seems to carry almost no weight whatsoever other than just the indexing.


Also the case that more used links may carry more weight.


This is a theory for now, but we've seen some papers on this and there has been some hypothesizing


in the SEO community that essentially Google is watching as people browse the web and they


can get that data and sort of see that, hey, this is a well trafficked page.


It gets a lot of visits from this other page.


This navigation actually seems to get used versus this other navigation which doesn't


seem to be used.


There's a lot of ways that Google might interpret that data or might collect it.


Could be from the size of it or the CSS qualities.


Could be from how it appears on the page visually, but regardless that also seems to be the case.


Same is true for more visible links.


This does seem to be something that's testable.


So if you have very small fonts, very tiny links, they are not nearly as accessible or


obvious to visitors.


It seems to be the case that they also don't carry as much weight in Google's rankings.


On pages with multiple links, so to the same URL.


So for example, let's say I've got this products link up here at the top, but I also link to


my products down here under other candies, et cetera.


It turns out that Google will see both links.


They both point to the same page in this case, both pointing to the same page over here,


but this page will only inherit the value of the anchor text from the first link on


the page, not both of them.


So other candies, et cetera, that anchor text will essentially be treated as though it doesn't


exist.


Google ignores multiple links to the same URL.


This is actually true internal and external, but for this reason, if you're going ahead


and trying to stuff in links in your internal content to other pages thinking that you can


get better anchor text value, well look, if they're already in your navigation, you're


not getting any additional value.


Same case if they're up higher in the content, right?


The second link to them is not carrying the anchor text value.


Other items to note on the external side of things and where they're placed on pages.


So in general, in-content links are going to be more valuable than footers or nav links,


and in general nav links are going to do better than footers, but in-content, sort of this


primary content area right in here, that is where you're going to get the most link value


if you have the option of where you're going to get an external link from on a page.


What if you have links that open in a new tab or in a new window versus links that open


in the same tab, same window?


Doesn't seem to matter at all.


Google does not appear to carry any different weight from the experiments that we've seen


and the ones we've conducted.


Text links, however, text links do seem to perform better, get more weight than image


links with alt attributes.


They also seem to perform better than JavaScript links and other types of links, but critically


important to know this because many times what you will see is that a website will do


something like this.


They'll have an image.


This image will be a link that will point off to a page, and then below it they'll have


some sort of caption with keyword-rich anchors down here, and that will also point off, but


Google will treat this first link as though it is the one and it will be the alt attribute


of this image that passes the anchor text.


Unless this is all one href tag, in which case you do get the benefit of the caption


as the anchor.


So best practice there.


What about multiple links from the same page?


Well, just like with internal links, only the first anchor is going to count.


So if I have two links from Candy Japan pointing to me, it's only the top one that Google sees


first in the HTML.


So it's not where it's organized in the site as it renders visually, but where it comes


up in the HTML of the page as Google's rendering that.


Also last but not least, the same link and anchor on many or most or all pages on a website


tends to get you into trouble.


Not always, not universally.


Sometimes it can be okay, right?


So is Amazon allowed to link to Whole Foods from their footer?


Yes, they are, right?


They're part of the same company and group and that kind of thing.


But if, for example, Amazon were to go crazy spamming and decided to make it cheap avocados


delivered to your home and put that in the footer of all their pages and point that to


the Whole Foods.com slash avocado delivery page, that would probably get penalized or


it may just be devalued.


It might not rank at all or it might not pass any link equity.


So notable that in the cases where you have the option of, should I get a link on every


page of a website?


Well, gosh, that sounds like a good deal.


I'd pass all this page rank and all this link equity.


No, bad deal.


Instead, far better would be to get a link from a page that's already linked to by all


of these pages.


Like, hey, if we can get a link from the about page or from the products page or from the


homepage, right?


A link on the homepage.


Those are all great places to get links.


I don't want a link on every page in the footer or on every page in a sidebar.


That tends to get me in trouble, especially if it is anchor text rich and clearly keyword


targeted and trying to manipulate SEO.


All right, everyone, look forward to your questions.


We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Understanding & Harnessing the Flow of Link Equity to Maximize SEO Ranking Opportunity - WBF

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


This week we're going to chat about understanding and harnessing link equity flow, primarily


internal link equity flow, so that you can get better rankings and execute on your SEO.


And a big thank you to William Cho, at WchoWMX on Twitter for suggesting this topic.


If you have a topic or something you'd like to see on Whiteboard Friday, tweet at me.


We'll add it to the list.


So some principles of link equity, first to be aware of before we dive into some examples.


Number one, it is true that external links generally give more ranking value and potential


ranking boosts than internal links.


That is not to say, though, that internal links provide no link equity, and in fact,


many pages that earn few or no external links can still rank well if a domain itself is


well linked to and that page is on that site and has links from other good, important pages


on the domain.


But if a page is orphaned or if a domain has no links at all, extremely difficult to rank.


Number two, well linked to pages, both internal and external, pass more link equity than those


that are poorly linked to.


I think this makes intuitive sense to all of us who've understood the concept of page


rank over the years.


Basically, if a page accrues many links, especially from other important pages, that page's ability


to pass its link equity to other pages to give a boost in ranking ability is stronger


than if a page is very poorly linked to or not linked to at all.


Third, pages with fewer links tend to pass more equity to their targets than pages with


more links.


Again, going off the old concept of page rank, if you have a page with hundreds or thousands


of links on it, each of those receives a much more fractional, smaller amount of the link


equity that could be passed to it than if you have a page with only a few links on it.


This is not universally – well, I just want to say this doesn't scale perfectly.


So it's not the case that if you were to trim down your high link earning pages to having


only one link and point to this particular page on your site, that you'd suddenly get


tremendously more benefit than if you had your normal navigation on that page and you


linked to your home page and about page and products page.


That's not really the case.


But if you had a page that had hundreds of links in a row and you instead made that page


have only a few links to the most important, most valuable places, you'll get more equity


out of that, more rank boosting ability.


Number four, hacks and tricks like using rel="nofollow", or embedding a remotely executable JavaScript


file that makes it so that browsers can see the links and visitors can, but Google is


unlikely to see or follow those links to shape the flow of your link equity is generally


a, a poor use of your time because internal links don't – it doesn't affect things


that much, right?


The old school page rank algorithm, not that hugely important anymore.


And two, Google is often pretty good at interpreting and discounting these things.


So it tends to not be worth your time at all.


And last but not least on these principles, redirects and canonicalization.


So if I have a 301 or a rel="canonical for home page or another", those will lose or


cost you a small, very small amount of link equity.


But more potentially costly would be using non-ideal types of redirects or canonicalization


methods like a JavaScript-based redirect or a 302 or a 307 instead of a 301.


If you're going to do a redirect or if you're going to do canonicalization, 301s or rel="canonicals


are the way to go.


So keeping in mind these principles, let's talk through some of the most, well, three


of the most common link equity flow issues that we see websites facing.


Number one, there's a few pages.


You have a relatively large site, let's say thousands to tens of thousands, maybe even


hundreds of thousands of pages, and only a few of those pages are earning any substantial


quantity of external links.


I've highlighted those in pink, right?


So these pages are pointing to these pink ones.


But on this website, you have other pages, pages like these purple ones, where you essentially


are wanting to earn link equity because you know that you need to rank for these terms


and pages that these purple ones are targeting.


But they're not getting the external links that these pink pages are.


In these cases, it's important to try a few things.


Number one, we want to identify the most important non-link earning pages, these purple ones,


right?


We've got to figure out what these actually are.


What are the pages that you wish would rank that are not yet ranking for their terms and


phrases that they're targeting?


Next, we want to optimize our internal links from these pink pages to these purple ones.


So in an ideal world, we would say, aha, these pages are very strong, they've earned a lot


of link equity, you could use Open Site Explorer and look at top pages, or Ahrefs, or any of


our other competitors, right?


Look at your top pages, the ones that have earned the most links and the most link equity.


And then you could say, hey, can I find some relevance between these two or some user stories


where someone who reaches this page needs something over here, and thus I'm going to


create a link to and from there.


That's a great way to pass equity.


The third way, the third thing I would consider is retrofitting and republishing.


So what I mean by this is essentially, I'm going to take these pages, these purple ones


that I want to be earning links that are not doing well yet, and considering reworking


their content, taking the lessons that I've learned from the pink pages, the ones that


have earned link equity, that have earned external links, and saying, what did these


guys do right that we haven't done right on these guys, and what could we do to fix that


situation, then I'm going to republish and restart a marketing, a link building campaign


to try and get those links.


All right, B, this time we're dealing with a small site, a very, very small site, you


know, five pages, 10 pages, maybe even up to 50 pages, but generally a very small, you


know, often a lot of small businesses, a lot of local businesses have this type of presence,


and only the homepage gets any link equity at all.


So what do we do in those cases?


There's not a whole lot to spread around.


The homepage can only link to so many places.


We have to serve users first.


If we don't, we're definitely going to fall in the search engine rankings.


And so, you know, in this case where the pink link earner is the homepage, there's two things


we can do.


First off, make sure that the homepage is targeting and serves the most critical keyword


targets, right?


So we have some keyword targets that we know we want to go after.


If there's one phrase in particular that's very important, rather than having the homepage


target our brand, we could consider having the homepage target that specific query.


And many times, small businesses and small websites will make this mistake where they


say, oh, you know, our most important keyword, we'll make that this page.


We'll try and rank it, we'll link to it from the homepage.


That is generally not nearly as effective as making the homepage target that searcher


intent.


If it can fit with the user journey as well, that's one of the best ways you can go.


Second, consider some new pages for content, like essentially saying, hey, I recognize


that these other pages, maybe they're about my terms of service and some of my products


and services and whatnot.


And they're just not that link worthy.


They don't deserve links.


They're not the type of pages that would naturally own links.


So we might need to consider what are two or three types of pages or pages that we could


produce pieces of content that could earn those links.


And think about it this way.


You know who you're the people who are already linking to you are, right?


It's these folks, right?


I mean, I've just made up some domains here.


But the folks who are already linking to your homepage, those are likely to be the kinds


of people who will link to your internal pages as well.


And so I would think about them as link targets and say, what would I be pretty confident


that they would link to if only they knew that it existed on our website?


That's going to give you a lot of success.


And then you can check out, I would check out some of our link building sections here


on Whiteboard Friday and across the Moz blog for more tips.


C, last one here, mid and long tail keyword targeting.


So this is essentially, I have a large site and I have pages that are targeting keywords


that don't get a ton of volume but they're still important.


They could really boost the value that we get from our website because they're hyper-targeted


to good customers for us.


And in this case, one of the challenges is they're hidden by our information architecture.


So your top-level navigation, maybe even your secondary-level navigation just doesn't link


to them.


And so they're just buried deep down in the website under whole bunches of other stuff.


And in these cases, there are some really good solutions.


So you want to find, if you can, find semantic and user intent relationships.


So semantic is these words appeared on those pages, right?


So let's say one of these pages here is targeting the word toothpaste, for example.


And I find that, oh, you know what, this page over here, which is well linked to in our


navigation mentions the word toothpaste, but it doesn't link over here yet.


I'm going to go create those links.


That's a semantic relationship.


A user intent relationship would be, hey, this page over here talks about oral health.


Well, oral health and toothpaste are actually pretty relevant.


Let me make sure that I can create that user journey because I know that people who've


read about oral health on our website probably also later want to read about toothpaste,


at least some of them.


So let's make that relationship also happen between those two pages.


That would be a user intent type of relationship.


And you're going to find those between your highly linked to external pages and your well


linked to internal pages and these long tail pages that you're trying to target.


And then you're going to create those new links.


Second, try and leverage the top level category pages that you already have.


So if you have a top level navigation and it links to whatever it is, home, products,


services, about us, contact, the usual types of things, it's those pages that are extremely


well linked to already internally where you can add in content links to these long tail


pages and potentially benefit.


And then last, consider creating.


If you're having trouble adding them to these pages, they already have too many links, there's


no user story that makes good sense here, it's too weird to jam them in, maybe engineering


or your web dev team thinks that that's ridiculous to try and jam those in there, consider creating


new top level pages.


So essentially saying, hey, I want to add a page to our top level navigation that is