And I want to read to you the introduction to the page.


Engineering-As-Marketing for Non-Engineers Presented by Tara Reed

Because what I think it does is it makes an interesting statement about the changing ecosystem


of people and types of people who can now build software.


So I want to read to you the introduction of this project.


The project is called notrealtwitter.com.


So it says welcome to not real Twitter.


Just like Twitter but worse.


A lot worse.


The purpose of this site isn't to steal Twitter's business or to give people a chance at a fresh


social media start.


It is to show the future of software development.


Because in 2020 most programmers won't be engineers.


They will be doctors, teachers, farmers and executives.


The person who built this site isn't a software engineer.


He didn't use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, pearl, PHP, Python, et cetera.


In fact he didn't write a single line of code.


And he built it in four days.


Enjoy not real Twitter built using that platform I just showed you called bubble.


And then it closes with a quick note to Twitter.


Please don't sue us.


So this is just an example that I want to show you.


So this is not real Twitter.


You can create your own not real Twitter handle and your own password.


You can sign up to the site.


And then you land into a dashboard where you can post tweets, send DMs, retweet things,


like things, change your profile picture, see recommendations of people to follow based


on similar content that they are posting based on what content you are posting or who you


follow.


You can see how many people are following you and following you back.


All this stuff is dynamically changing.


This is a real app.


And so if someone can build this in four days, imagine the types of interactive experiences,


the types of microsites, the types of tools and widgets that we can build for our users


on our own sites.


So as I mentioned, you can use engineering as marketing to build tools that convert users


on your page.


But I want to talk to you about those other two ways I mentioned you can use engineering


as marketing.


Because you can also use engineering as marketing to get people to the page in the first place.


Not just to convert them when they are on your page, but to get them there in the first


place.


Because why do our interactive experiences that we have with customers have to only be


on the page?


Why can't they happen before the person even finds our page?


So most marketers think that the interaction, the engagement, all of this stuff happens


when they land on the page.


They also have some thoughts about what this whole growth hacking stuff is.


And I'm not really sure what you're talking about, Tara, but this engineering as marketing


stuff, this growth hacking stuff, that's stuff that small startups do.


I don't know anything about that.


You might be thinking that right now.


It is true that there are some overlaps when you're talking about engineering as marketing


to acquire users.


There are some overlaps between engineering as marketing and growth hacking.


And I want to talk to you about the ways that we can learn things from this new space that


is growth hacking and implement elements of it into our own businesses, no matter what


size of company we work for.


And again, I want to show you some software tools that you can use to create awesome interactive


experiences for users before they even get to your site or to bring them to your site


without writing any code.


So I'll start with a simple one that I really love, Edgar, which you can use to schedule


your social media posts and not just schedule them, but to repurpose content.


So if you've got an awesome blog post, you've got a series of awesome blog posts, you load


it up.


And not only do you have to load it up once, but it just keeps recycling at the best times.


That's starting to create some sort of experience, for example, on Twitter for your users, on


Facebook for your users.


There's sort of an engagement strategy with them off the site.


But how can we take that a step further?


Some of you might be familiar with a tool called Socito, which allows you to find leads


who are desperate for your product and your service on social media in a new way.


So instead of running ads, what tools like Socito do is they look for keywords that people


are saying in their posts.


For example, for my startup, Collecto, which is an art startup, we look for people who


are saying specific things like I wish I could afford to buy art.


Or people who are checking in at museums.


And we use those as indicators that they might be interested in our product.


And what Socito does is it automatically engages with them.


It likes their posts.


If they follow us, we follow them back.


And if we choose to, we send them a DM that says, hey, Carla, saw your tweets about art.


If you're interested in buying some art on a budget or learning about collecting art


on a budget, here's a link to this cool interactive tool that we've built for you called Art Collecting


School.


So what we're doing is we're creating these interactive experiences off site that bring


people to the interactive experiences that we've built on site.


There are a couple other awesome tools that you can use that sort of fit this hybrid of


growth hacking and engineering as marketing.


Growth pup is a tool that finds customers for you on Instagram, on autopilot.


You can also do some really interesting things around web scraping and finding the right


people there.


And so you can use engineering as marketing not just to have awesome interactive experiences


on your site, but also to bring people to the interactive experiences and have that


method of you bringing them to the interactive experience be interactive in itself.


So number three, I also mentioned that I want to talk to you about ways you can use engineering


as marketing to boost your engagement rates.


Once someone's already in the door, how do you intelligently engage with them?


Many of us use email marketing, use a lot of tools that are always going to be relevant.


But there's some really awesome things you can do with tools like intercom where you're


messaging people at the right time.


So let's say you've built an interactive experience like art collecting school where people are


going through a series of experiences on your site.


You can send them to the right piece of content, the right blog post, the right quiz, the right


calculator, the right prompt to upgrade based on where they are in the funnel instead of


sending the same SMS message push notification email to everyone at once.


You can also surface those messages inside of your app.


Many of us know intercom for surfacing intelligent and time sensitive messages, time relevant


messages inside of an app.


What does it look like to use a tool like intercom on your blog, on your regular pieces


of content?


What does it look like to create a funnel just like we do with products where the person


goes through onboarding and then they sign up and then they do these set actions?


What if we created those funnels for our blogs?


Because this is the post you should probably read first and then you should go here next


and then you should see this piece of content and then go to this site.


How do we funnel people through in an interactive way where it knows where they are and prompts


them?


And you can do that with tools like intercom.


And if you don't even have the resources, you don't even have an app infrastructure


or you don't even have a sophisticated blog infrastructure where you can put in tools


like intercom, you literally can do this by stringing together a series of Zapier zaps.


Zapier is a tool that allows you to piece different software tools together and so you


can create these triggers and zaps when someone does something, then do something else.


When someone fills out a form, then schedule a calendar invite.


And so if you don't even have the infrastructure to use some of those other tools, you can


literally piece tools together like Zapier.


And so you can also use engineering as marketing to boost your engagement rates.


You've created an interactive experience for someone offsite, you interacted with them


onsite with some sort of cool widget that you've built for them, and you keep them engaged


using these engineering tools as well.


So we've talked about these three ways that you can tackle engineering as marketing.


Which means that this conversation starts to change a little bit.


Where the marketers are over here and the engineers are over here.


It means that there are now tools out there that we can use, everyone in this room can


use to allow themselves to start thinking like a builder.


Because we are builders.


We build links, we build campaigns.


Why can't we build interactive experiences?


Why is that outside of our box?


Why would we build our marketing strategies so we think about SEO and email marketing


and social media marketing, all those things are important, but what about that other iterative


experimentation that we can be doing with new things?


Where does that fit into our strategy?


How do we expand our ideas about our roles as marketers and start thinking about some


new experiments we can run inside of our team?


So as I mentioned, I have a toolkit for you.


I've outlined my 25 favorite tools that you can use to actually implement your engineering


as marketing plan.


I spoke about some of them today, but there's a much more full list, case studies and examples.


If you want to get that, send me a text, text the word MozCon to 44222.


If you're interested in case studies around engineering as marketing and also a list of


tools you can use to implement it, build your own microsites, apps, et cetera, shoot me


a text.


This talk is about engineering as marketing, but above everything else, it's about rolling


up your sleeves and finding a way to get experimentative with your marketing no matter what.


It's about not letting your ability to code or not code act as a handicap, and it's about


realizing that none of us will truly be successful unless we push ourselves outside of these


marketing boxes that we've created for ourselves.


Again my name is Tara Reid, I'm the CEO of apps without code, and I hope I've introduced


you to some interesting new concepts that you can take back to your team.


Thank you.


Thank you Tara, we have time for one question.


I'll ask you one first.


Do you think I can code the next Facebook?


No, I'm just kidding.


So if there's a blog post on your site that performs well in search and conversions, and


if you wanted to make an interactive version of it, would you redirect from the post to


interactive version or keep both versions of forms content and interlink?


So the question was, just to repeat, if you've got a blog post, it converts really well,


and you want to bring some interactivity to it, do you keep the original blog post, do


you redirect, how do you handle that?


I think you should keep the original blog post and link to it.


Some of the really successful examples I've seen of this are they start with a blog post,


and at the end, instead of some sort of content upgrade, instead of giving someone a PDF or


some sort of static piece of material, you give them your content, your engagement tool,


right?


So if you put that interactivity at the bottom of the blog post, in the middle of the blog


post, it can live on the blog post as well, but I would keep your static content for a


lot of reasons.


One more.


We have time for one more.


Yeah, let's do it.


In enterprise SEO, engineers are unsung heroes.


They build amazing, that's a pretty good question.


Yes.


It's not mine either, but anyway.


They build amazing proprietary tools for announced SEOs, which yield millions and millions of


... for bigger retailers.


Long question too, but anyway.


How do marketers show those developers, project managers, infrastructure, and QA teams more


love?


Yeah.


I think that there are a lot of ways to show your engineering team more love.


One of the ways to do that is to realize that your engineering team is really busy, and


there are all these ways.


A lot of these things that I mentioned, maybe you have a really big engineering team, and


maybe you have an engineering team that's dedicated to helping your marketing team with


experiments and projects like this.


And so if you have that, you have a slightly different situation where you have to do less


rolling up your sleeves as a marketer, right?


You already have those resources to build those tools.


But one way I think you can show your engineering team love, no matter what size team you work


on, is to work ahead on small iterative experiments that are going to feed back insights to your


engineering team about what works and what doesn't work.


So let's say we want to build some sort of interactive quiz or experiment.


You take a small segment of your email list, a small segment of your user base, a small


segment of your visitors to your site, and you just build a small little MVP, minimum


viable product version of what you eventually want to build using some of these tools that


I mentioned.


And then you get to go back to your engineering team and say, hey, I know you guys are working


on product roadmap for this new thing we're building.


Here are the things I learned about what people are responding to and not responding to.


I thought this was going to work.


People are not clicking on this.


Let's try it a slightly different way.


So you can work ahead of your engineering team and show them love by bringing them those


insights in a really smart way.


Thank you.


Yeah, thank you.


Are On-Topic links Important? - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


This week we're going to chat a little bit about on-topic and off-topic links.


So one of the questions and one of the topics that you see discussed all the time in the


SEO world is, do on-topic links matter more than off-topic links?


And by on-topic, people generally mean they come from sites and pages that are on the


same or very similar subject matter to the site or page that I'm trying to get the link


to.


And it sort of makes intuitive sense to us that Google would care somewhat about this,


right?


That they would say, oh, well, you know, here's our friend over here.


We'll call him Steve, right?


No, we're going to call him Carl, because Carl is a great name.


And Carl, of course, has carlscloset.net.


Carl's Closet.net being a home organization site.


Carl is going out and he's doing some link building, which he should.


And so he's got some link targets in mind.


And he looks at places like realsimple.com, right, the magazine site, Sunset Magazine,


underwaterhogies.com, you know, Carl being a great fan of all things underwater and sandwich


related.


And so as he's looking at these sites, he's thinking to himself, well, from an SEO perspective,


is it necessarily the case, right, that realsimple, which is a lot about, has a lot of content


on home organization and on cleaning up clutter and those kinds of things, is that going to


help Carl's Closet site rank better than, say, a link from underwaterhogies.com?


Well, the answer is a little tough here, right?


So like it could be the case, right, that underwaterhogies.com has a feature article


all about how submariners can keep their home in order even as they brunch under the sea.


But maybe the link from realsimple.com is coming from a less on topic article and page.


And so this starts to get really messy, right?


Is it the site that matters?


Is it the page that matters?


Is it the context that matters?


Is it the link itself and where that's embedded in the site?


And what is the real understanding that Google has between relationships of on topic and


off topic?


And that's where you get a lot of convoluted information.


I have seen, and we've probably all heard, a ton of anecdotal evidence on both sides.


There are SEOs who will argue passionately from their experience that what they've seen


is that on topic links are hugely more beneficial than off topic ones.


And you'll see the complete opposite from some other folks.


In fact, most of my personal experiences when I was doing more directed link building for


clients way back in my SEO consulting days and even more recently as I've helped startups


and advised folks has been that off topic links, right, underwaterhogies.com, linking


to Carl's Closet, that still seems to provide quite a bit of benefit.


And it's very hard to gauge whether it's as much, less than, more than any of these other


ones.


So I think on the anecdotal side we're in a tough spot.


What we can say is that probably there's some additional value from on topic sites, on topic


pages or on topic link connections.


That Google has some idea of context.


We've seen them make huge strides with algorithms like Hummingbird, certainly with their keyword


matching and topic modeling algorithms.


It seems very unlikely that there would be nothing in Google's algorithm that looks at


the context or relationship of content between linking pages and linking websites.


However, in the real world things are almost never equal.


It's not that they're going to get exactly the same anchor text from the same importance


of a page that has the same number of external links that the content is exactly the same


on all three of these websites pointing over to Carl's Closet.


In the real world, right, Carl is going to struggle much harder to get some of these


links than others.


And so I think that the questions that we need to ask ourselves as folks who are doing


directed marketing and trying to earn links is will the link actually help people?


Is that link going to be clicked?


If you're on a page on Real Simple that you think very few people ever reach, you think


very few people will ever click that link because it just doesn't appear to provide


much value versus you're in an article all about home organization on underwater hoagies


and it was featured on their home page and you're pretty sure that a lot of the submariners


who are eating their subs under the sea are very interested in this topic and are going


to click on that link.


Well, you know what?


That's a link that helps people.


That probably means search engines are going to treat it with some reverence as well.


Does the link make sense in context?


This is a good one to ask yourself when you are doing any kind of link building that's


directed that could potentially be manipulative.


If the link makes sense in context, it tends to be the case that it's going to be more


useful.


So if Carl contributes the article to underwaterhoagies.com and the link makes sense in context and it


will help people, I think it's appropriate to put it there.


If that's not the case, it could look a little manipulative.


It could certainly be perceived as self-serving.


And then can you actually acquire the link?


It's wonderful when you go out and you make a list of, hey, here's the most relevant important


sites in our sector and niche and this is how we're going to build topical authority.


But if you can't get those links, hey, that's tough potatoes, man.


It's no better than putting a list of links and just sorting them by, God knows, a horrible


metric like page rank or Alexa rank or something like that.


I would instead ask yourself if it's realistic for you to be able to get those links and


pursue those as well as pursuing the or looking at the metrics and the importance and the


topical relevance.


So let's think about this from a broad perspective.


Search engines are caring about what?


They're caring about matching the content relevance to the searcher's query.


They care about raw link popularity.


That's sort of like the old school algorithms of page rank and number of links and that


kind of thing.


They do care about topical authority and brand authority.


We talked about on Whiteboard Friday previously around some topical authorities and how Google


determines the authority and the subject matter of a site's authority.


They care about domain authority, the raw sort of importance of a domain on the web.


They care about things like engagement, user and usage data.


Given how much they can follow all of us around the web these days, they probably know pretty


well whether people are clicking on these articles, using these pages or not.


Then anchor text.


Not every link that you might build or acquire or earn is going to provide all of these in


one single package.


Each of them are going to be contributing pieces of those puzzles.


When it comes to the on-topic, off-topic link debate, I'm much more about caring about the


answers to these kinds of questions.


Can I acquire the link?


Is it useful to people?


Will they actually use it?


Does the link make sense in context?


Then I am about is it on-topic or off-topic.


I'm not sure that I would ever urge you to prioritize based on that.


That said, I'm certainly looking forward to your feedback this week and hearing about


your experiences with on-topic and off-topic links.


Hopefully, we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


MozCon 2015 - 22 - Get Hired to Do SEO with Ruth Burr Reedy

Howdy, my fans!


So excited to be here.


Like Jen said, my name is Ruth and I currently manage an eight-person SEO team at Big Wing


Interactive which is a full-service digital marketing agency in Oklahoma City.


It's actually really nice.


You guys should visit.


It's nice.


And today I wanted to...yeah!


Today I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about what I, as someone who hires people


to do SEO, look for when I'm hiring someone to do SEO.


And one of the things I really love about conferences like MozCon is you get a chance


to talk to all of these people about how they got here.


How did you get into SEO?


And it's always a weird, circuitous story like, oh, I got an internship, I built a website


for a friend, I was working on this project, I realized we needed search engine traffic,


I tried to figure out how to do that, I taught myself SEO, now I'm totally crushing it, I'm


living it every day and it's my life and I love it.


It's always some like weird, random, just kind of happened, now I'm owning it story.


The problem is when you go to actually look for a job doing SEO, the job descriptions


tend to look more like this.


Got a minimum experience requirement, we really want you to have experience in our industry.


If you have a BA in marketing or communications, that would be great.


And a lot of people when they're out looking for jobs don't actually match this requirement


and that doesn't mean they're not qualified for the job, but it can be hard to get that


experience if you don't already have it.


And unfortunately when you ask other SEOs for advice, they're like, just build a website,


man, just like get in there, build your own website, get a lot of experience and you try


things out, you test it, it's really cool.


Yeah, great, but I gotta get paid.


So when you're looking at these job descriptions, it can be really tempting to give up like


this sad puppy, but instead you gotta be like this happy puppy and let's make some money.


Who wants to make some money?


Yes?


Yeah!


Okay, so first thing you have to learn to do is speak job description.


When someone asks that you have at least three years of experience, they don't actually think


that in your 36 month of SEO you get some kind of beautiful gift from angels that now


you know how to do everything SEO.


All they really mean is you need to know how to do this already.


I don't have time to teach you SEO, I need you to come in here and do it.


That's all that means.


If you feel like at two years of experience you know how to do SEO, you should apply for


that job.


When they ask for a bachelor's degree in marketing, here's the secret, most SEOs don't have a


marketing degree.


I don't have a marketing degree, I have a degree in theater.


Shocking, surprising, are you surprised?


All they really mean is you need to have a bachelor's degree in something.


And however you might feel about this requirement, there are going to be companies where they're


very firm and adamant from an HR level that you will need to have a bachelor's degree.


But sometimes when they're asking for a bachelor's degree in marketing, all they're really asking


is you should know something about marketing.


So when you're looking at a job description, don't look at the letter, look at the spirit,


look at the intent behind the words in much the same way that you would for an SEO client.


It's not just what they're telling you they want, it's the search intent behind those


words in that job description.


If you feel like you meet that, you should apply for the job.


And you might be thinking, oh, well, but this person's just going to look at my resume and


then throw it out because I don't meet their requirements and I won't even get to the interview


and everything's terrible and I'm a sad puppy.


But the place for you to address these concerns is in your cover letter.


Everyone hates writing a cover letter.


It feels weird to just be like, I'm so great, you should hire me because I'm really, really


good at stuff.


But your cover letter, if you are going to apply for a job where your resume doesn't


meet the requirements, your cover letter is the first place for you to explain how you


meet the spirit but not the letter of the law.


If you want to say, I only have two years in experience, but in that two years I've


done X, Y, and Z amazing things.


Or I don't have a bachelor's degree in marketing, but I have been working in marketing on this


side and I've learned a lot and I've read these books and I've done this stuff.


All of that are things that you can address in your cover letter.


And here's a secret.


That person who put out that perfect job description, you know how many SEOs with three or more


years of experience who have a BA in marketing, there are just out looking for a job?


Very, very few.


So your hiring manager is going to be okay with you not having all of those skills if


you can demonstrate that you have what they really need, which is the ability to get the


job done.


You also want to think about your ability to get the job done when you're looking at


your actual resume, your actual paper resume.


If you were an office manager and your duties included things like placing the Costco order


and booking people's travel, but it also included things like learning HTML so that you could


format and send out the company newsletter, that last skill, somewhat more relevant to


the job you're applying for than the other two.


I firmly believe, and this goes for any job you're applying to, not just SEO, you should


rewrite your resume every time you submit it.


You should rewrite your resume, detail it specifically to the requirements of the job


for which you're applying.


The other way you can really stand out with an SEO resume is to include metrics because


if you show, okay, I only have two years of experience, but I was able to improve traffic


by 20%, I increased revenue from organic search by 30%.


Not only does that show me that you can actually do the job, it also shows me that you know


how to understand how to think about SEO.


You're already thinking about SEO in terms of results and metrics.


It also shows me if you're like, and I increased rankings for the key phrase, I love cheap


new carpet by ten positions, I can just throw your resume in the garbage.


You want to include any kind of special skills that you have that apply, especially at an


agency, experience might be less important because there are people there to teach you.


They're going to want to know that you have experience with things like time management


and juggling multiple stakeholders.


In-house, you having experience is more important because there's probably not going to be anybody


else there to teach you.


So you're going to want to let them know that you have experience working in teams, getting


buy-in across departments, managing a P&L.


All of those things can help you seem more relevant if you have a lack of years of experience.


Because as somebody who's hiring somebody for SEO, when I'm looking at resumes, I'm


like Mr. Waturi from Joe vs. the Volcano.


I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?


I'm not arguing now with you.


If you haven't seen that movie, it's so funny, you guys should watch it.


I don't actually care if you have three or more years of experience.


The HR department asked me how many years to put on there and I said three.


What I really want to know is can you get this job done for me so that I can stop thinking


about it and keep thinking about other things?


So one of the things that I'm going to ask myself about you after I read your resume


is who are you?


And I'm going to turn to that ultimate source of information, Google.


So make yourself as Google-able as possible.


You do that by using online reputation management techniques, just like you would for any client.


The best way to manage reputation online is to own every piece of real estate in the SERP


for your brand term, which in this case is your name.


So you can do that with things like your Twitter profile and your LinkedIn profile.


Buy your own name as a domain name if it's available.


You can join communities like the Moz community, about.me is another great place to build a


page about yourself.


Don't forget images.


You can also make sure that images of you are flattering and appropriate and on the


first page of the SERPs and you do that by seeding the SERPs and doing the same kind


of optimization you would for any other image.


And you know what?


It's really easy for me to give you this advice because my name's not Jennifer Lopez.


It can be really, really difficult to brand yourself for your name if your name is either


very common or the same name as a very famous person.


I was so happy that Jennifer Lopez got confetti bombed by a scary clown the day I took the


screenshot by the way.


That was gold.


Thanks, scary clown.


However, what you may notice is that our own Jenita, Jennifer Sable Lopez, has found a


brandable version of her name and has been able to establish her own personal brand and


dominate that in the SERP and she does that by using the same principles of branding that


we would use for anything else.


Okay.


You can't dominate your whole market.


Find your niche.


Either you create a version of your name using your middle name or a middle initial or you


use like so Mike King, Michael King, a very common name.


He started with the brand I Pull Rank and he used it everywhere.


He was consistent.


He used it everywhere across the web.


I guarantee he's put it on resumes before.


Whatever you do to create your personalized, brandable version of yourself, be consistent,


use it everywhere and lock it down.


If Jen can carve out a niche in the very competitive Jennifer Lopez market, you guys can do it


too.


And yeah, have a website.


On your website you're going to want to demonstrate that you know some basic skills that are important


for any SEO to know.


You're going to need to know HTML, at least enough to get by, at least enough to implement


some schema.


And you should probably learn WordPress while you're at it because WordPress is a platform


that a lot of people do.


You should make sure that you're writing in the wild, not just on your own website and


on your own blog, but figure out where are places where you can get a writing sample


placed.


Because even if the job to which you're applying isn't super writing focused, maybe it's not


a content marketing job, it's more of a technical job, most SEOs need to do at least some writing.


They need to be effective written communicators with their clients and they're probably going


to have to write some copy.


So seed the web with examples of your writing in the wild because I'm going to take that


more seriously if I find it organically online than I am if you send it to me because if


you sent it to me I don't really know where you got it or that you wrote it.


You should also demonstrate that you know a little something about content strategy


and design, which I'm not going to cover because you should have learned about this earlier


if you were paying attention.


And you should know about SEO.


I'm going to ask about SEO in the interview so you should be comfortable talking about


that too.


If you're not, then maybe it's time for you to start learning instead of looking for a


job and put that off until you feel more conversant with your skill set.


The one question you are absolutely going to get asked in a job interview for an SEO


position is what blogs do you read?


And there are, okay, there are some wrong answers, but there are a lot of different


right answers.


So find the blogs that really speak to you.


But one of the things that I'm looking for is do you care about this enough to be learning


about it in your own time?


Are you consistently keeping up with developments and news in the industry?


If you're not, then you're probably going to wash out after a couple of years because


your skills won't be current anymore and then I'm going to have to go through all of this


again and I don't want to do that.


So be prepared to answer that and be prepared to answer that question thoughtfully.


Let's talk a little bit about how I got my job.


Do you know where I got the job that I have now for all practical intents and purposes?


MozCon 2013, yeah.


So in 2013, I knew that I was moving to Oklahoma City and Tila, who is a Mozer, met my current


boss David and was like, you have to meet this guy.


He's British, but he lives in Oklahoma City and he's really nice and you should meet him


because Tila was really worried that I wasn't going to have any friends, which is nice.


And I did meet David and we hit it off.


So when I was ready for my next gig in Oklahoma City, David already knew me.


We'd already talked about SEO a lot.


He was comfortable.


We'd built trust, building trust, building relationships.


Maybe someone has mentioned that earlier in the day.


I don't know.


So he was basically like, oh, you should just come work for me.


And that's the power of networking.


Networking isn't about making friends with people so that you can use them and it's also


not about, oh, well, that person just hires their friends.


It doesn't matter if they're good.


Networking is about getting to know people on a social level so that they have a chance


to experience you, who you are as a person, what you'd be like as a coworker.


And they're also going to become more familiar over time with your body of work and that's


the power of networking.


Networking doesn't have to be weird.


It doesn't have to be like, oh, what do you do?


Let's exchange business cards.


This is me and Mike P. from MozCon a couple of years ago.


You can make actual real live friends while networking who then turn into business connections


that will help you along the way.


Not just by hiring you directly, but if you're like, hey, giant network of SEOs that I've


acquired through being really friendly at conferences like this one.


I'm looking for a new job.


All those people are going to trust you enough to give you their stamp of approval and say,


hey, so and so, you're hiring.


I feel very comfortable recommending this person to you.


And that's the best way to get SEO jobs is to get to know other SEOs.


And a word on networking at conferences?


Rand Fishkin is not famous, you guys.


I know he seems famous because we're all in there, but Rand Fishkin is not an actual celebrity.


And you know what?


Rand is so nice.


He's really great to get to know.


And for all of you who are like, my whole goal when I come to MozCon this year, and


I know you're out there and it's totally cool, is to meet Rand Fishkin and get a picture


or is to meet Rand Fishkin and ask him my one SEO question.


If I do that, I'll feel like I've had a successful MozCon.


Rather than taking that time to mob the keynote speakers, look at the other 1500 people in


this room and think, who are the people that I could get to know?


Who are the people that I've talked to and really liked and felt like I had a connection?


Who are the people who are doing cool stuff on Twitter during the show?


Strike up a conversation in line for food or in line for drinks or in line for karaoke,


which we're totally doing tonight, everybody.


Yeah.


Make friends.


Make connections.


And that time you spent doing that will be so much better spent than the time you wait


asking trying to ask Rand your one SEO question.


Not that Rand's not great.


I love Rand.


I'm just saying there are a lot of other people here who would be worth getting to know.


And then once you get to know these people, stay in touch with them.


Reach out on Twitter.


Reach out on email.


Make sure you find them at the next conference.


And over time, you'll be building a whole network of connections that can turn into


jobs for you.


Speaking of staying in touch, holler at your girl.


And that's my show.


Thank you.


Thank you so much, Ruth.


I feel very privileged I had an entire slide dedicated to me.


I also remembered I tweeted out my cover letter and resume that got me hired at SEOmoz back


in the day.


I just tweeted that out.


It was a fun, like, oh, yeah.


I didn't know what the hell I was doing.


I mean, I did, Rand.


I did.


Turned out fine.


I have a few questions.


The question came up about LinkedIn.


Would you also update LinkedIn constantly?


Is it weird when people see you updating it?


I mean, from the perspective of, you know, like, your friends with all your LinkedIn


people and they might see you updating it, what are your thoughts on LinkedIn?


I say update LinkedIn pretty regularly.


I don't update my LinkedIn as often as I should, TBH.


But if you do something really cool, obviously, if you get a promotion, but make sure that


you're updating the descriptions of your job as you're doing cool stuff as well.


So those same metrics and results that you would put on your resume to show that you


know what you're doing, put that in your LinkedIn profile under the summary of your job as well.


And I actually just recently was hiring, and I was looking at this guy and trying to figure


out more about him, trying to find those examples of what he'd done in the wild.


And I was like, dang, I really wish that he had made better use of LinkedIn's portfolio


feature where you can collect all these videos and slide shares and things that you've done


because that would have made it a lot easier for me to research this person.


So I definitely think that's worth doing, and I definitely look at LinkedIn as part


of hiring.


I would be less inclined to hire somebody who hadn't spent any time on their LinkedIn


at all in a digital role because it's just a weird disconnect.


I agree with that as well.


Initially, before I even look at somebody's resume, I will Google them and look at their


LinkedIn and Twitter and whatnot first.


There was one really funny question, and I wasn't going to ask it, but I'm going to.


They want to know if that was an Eddie Izzard reference.


Were you surprised?


I was surprised.


It was.


Oh my gosh.


Come find me after.


I had to make sure that that was clear, that everybody was okay with that.


So what you did mention, you mentioned me, but I've essentially inserted another word


into my name.


Well, I mean, it's my real name and all, but what about folks who do have that, like Mike


King, and what are some other ways other than simply adding another name in that you can


get to make sure that people can find you when they're like, who is this person?


I mean, really, it's the same as when you're thinking of a brand name for a company.


There are going to be some people who are like, I do roofing in Edmond, Oklahoma, so


the name of my company is Edmond Roofing.


My name is Ruth Buridi.


That's fairly uncommon, so I just go by Ruth Buridi.


But if you do have something more common, it's okay to not, I mean, obviously put your


name on your resume.


Let's not get crazy.


But if you have another brand that you would like to take some time to create for yourself,


maybe you have a creative Twitter handle.


Maybe you've used something like Noem, which is a great tool to lock down your social info


over a lot of different platforms.


You can start using that everywhere.


The important thing is that you are consistent.


You can even do it with a keyword modifier.


So if your name's Mike Smith and you would like to start being known as Mike Smith SEO,


you can start putting that everywhere.


MikeSmithSEO.com.


Mike Smith SEO.


It's at Mike Smith SEO.


It's on your LinkedIn.


Do it everywhere.


Be very consistent with formatting.


Over time you are going to be able to carve out that brand niche.


And of course, again, as you would do with branding anything else, make sure that somebody


else isn't already squatting on that brand by like having your same name before you start


trying to brand that particular version.


Ruth Buridi That horrible other Jennifer Lopez.


Mike Smith Why should you change?


She's the one who sucks.


Ruth Buridi Yeah, exactly.


I do rank for Jen Lopez.


I'm just saying.


That was a really big thing.


Mike Smith It's possible.


Ruth Buridi All right.


Thank you, Ruth, so much.


We appreciate it.


I think everyone has learned a ton from exactly what we're looking for when we're looking


at jobs and whatnot.


And it's


Ruth Buridi Oh, and SEER is hiring and TripAdvisor is


hiring.


Big Wing is hiring content marketers.


If you live in Oklahoma City, if you want a job, there are people here trying to hire.


Just FYI.


Mike Smith Lots of jobs.


And that actually takes me into I have a really great segue.


Many of you know that three years ago, Inbound.org actually launched their jobs feature.


And they are doing a wonderful thing.


You can post for free on Inbound.org until August 31st using the code MozCon15.


It's also within the MozCon mobile app.


So if you go there, find the link, you can post a job for free.


And obviously there are lots of jobs there.


So folks who are looking for them can find all kinds of great things.


And be sure to take Ruth's advice as you are doing that.


Technical Tips: How to Effectively Correct Redirect Chains

Hi, I'm Alicia from the Customer Onboarding team here at Moz, and today we're going to


go through how to uncover redirect chains using your site crawl and straighten them


out in order to make navigating your website simpler for both users and search engines.


So what is a redirect chain? Redirect chains happen when there's more than one 3xx level


response code between an initial URL and the destination page. For example, you have page


A being redirected to page B, which is then being redirected to page C, and so on. Some


of the problems with redirect chains are it can slow down load speed, as each redirect


can result in an increase to the time it takes to load, so getting to the destination URL


is delayed. Redirect chains can also make it less likely that the search engines will


properly crawl your site, as well as creating a poor user experience, so it's really important


to identify and eliminate these extra hops when possible. We can find redirect chains


using the Moz Pro site crawl. In your campaign, navigate to Site Crawl and Redirect Issues.


Select just the redirect chain issues and scroll down to review all instances of these


that Moz has identified on your site. To see the pages associated with each redirect chain,


select the preview dropdown and click into View All Associated Pages. Here we can see


the initial URL is being redirected to a second page, which in turn is being redirected to


a third and final location. To fix these redirect chains, you'll want to identify the appropriate


page within that chain that is the destination, and then rewrite each 3xx code to point directly


to this. In other words, URL A will be redirected to URL C, and URL B will be redirected to


URL C. At this point, you may also want to pull a report to share with your developers.


Return to the previous page to view all redirect chain issues and export. In this report, column


D provides you with the issue grouping identifier to show which URLs are linked together. I've


filtered this list based on that column. To quickly identify which URLs are strung together,


I've also done a bit of formatting to my list. I've highlighted the destination page within


the chain that I'd like each URL to be redirected to with just that single 3xx. Now you're all


set with a neat list of the redirect chains on your site, along with the target URLs that


you want to resolve. This is really going to help you organize your site more efficiently


and help you create the best user experience. Thanks so much for watching. Be sure to follow


Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

Our next speaker is one of my very favorite people to be around.


Anytime I get the chance to spend time with her, I am left so inspired and so full of


cutting edge digital marketing hacks and I'm so excited for you all to take some of those


away today as well.


Her diverse skill set and endless curiosity truly make her a force to be reckoned with.


Dana even has a background in ecosystem restoration and is a tech columnist host on CBC Radio.


She is the president and partner at Kickpoint Incorporated and I cannot wait to see this


next talk.


I'm going to talk to you today about doing a discovery period at the beginning of projects


and I want to remind you, discovery isn't a new thing, right?


If you Google how to do discovery, you're going to see lots of results come up and discovery


is a concept that has been around for a while but not a lot of agencies have adopted it.


We rarely see agencies that are leaping into discovery or even in-house teams and I think


it's rarely done in-house so I definitely want to introduce that concept to you today.


And I think that this should really change.


I think many agencies should do discovery at the beginning of projects because based


on our experience, it's going to change your life for the better.


And today I'm going to convince you regardless of whether or not you're agency or in-house,


discovery should be your new best friend no matter where you work.


You need discovery because there's just no way you can find all the fun, exciting things


that come with working with a new client or at a new company when you do an unpaid pre-proposal


review in a few hours, right?


So you're sitting there, the client, you have a few phone calls about it, you learn a couple


of things, you put in a proposal and then surprise, everything is horrible.


Or you start a new job and you find out a few things in that interview and then when


you get there on the first day, you don't have any time to go back and figure out everything


that's led up to this point.


You just have to put your head down and work and hope that everything continues along the


way that has been for good or bad.


So hopefully discovery process will sort of take you out of that so you can do better


things.


And in particular, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to invest a sizable chunk of


time in a proposal that you might not even win, right?


As an agency, that time is money and you're not going to want to spend 20 hours working


on a proposal where you've got a low chance of necessarily getting it, especially if it's


you and a few other agencies in the room.


And plus this review is really one-sided, right?


You're getting some information from the client on what's really going on behind the scenes,


but no pre-sale survey or conversation is going to catch all the potential red flags


in a project until you've already committed, you've signed, deposit's paid, you've got


that NDA in place.


And that's when you find out the real fun stuff.


And from an agency perspective, I have to say that after 20 years of doing this, doing


this a long time now, it's rare that a client knows exactly what they want when they contact


you, right?


If it was great, they wouldn't need you, they would be fine.


They'd be doing it in-house on their own.


And I think that if they do try to do it themselves, they might know their goals, they might know


how to get there and they're on their way and maybe they just need a little bit of your


help.


But a lot of times people say, I need this or everything is horrible and we don't know


why.


And this is really what discovery helps you with.


Discovery for those people who are struggling, whether in-house or agency.


And so when I talk about discovery, I want to emphasize, you should be getting paid for


this, right?


This is an entirely separate time from the doing.


This is the reviewing.


This isn't the implementation.


This is the understanding and the planning side of things.


It's really a project all on its own and you should be paid for it regardless of whether


you're in-house or agency.


And what I mean by getting paid for it in-house is yes, salary.


Salary is important, but also making sure that you are getting the time you need to


understand what's happening at the company before you dive into that day to day, as I


mentioned earlier.


Be able to take a step back, figure out how you got here, what you need to do to get where


you need to go, and then make that happen.


Because if you skip or minimize this part of the process, you're very likely to end


up in a situation where, say you have a dedicated block of hours to do work on your own project,


but the result of this has to be the doing of the project, the tactics.


So that means that you have to jump in without thinking about the why.


And these constraints mean you're encouraged to do things as right as you can under those


circumstances, right?


You don't necessarily have that big picture.


And I'm not saying this happens to only people who rush or only people who are experienced,


right?


This happens to experienced teams all the time.


It happens when you dive into the engagement without having a proper getting to know you


period.


This is the point of discovery.


Think of it like photography.


So if you have a lens with a shallow depth of field, it's like jumping into monthly work.


You see the month ahead of you and off you go.


But what you don't see is it's blurry off in the distance, is this enormous monster


of something that you didn't realize was going to come and attack you halfway through the


month.


It's going to come and eat you and your time.


But you didn't realize that because it was fuzzy and you thought maybe it was a cactus


or something totally innocuous.


And you have enough focus to keep rolling ahead and you can ignore that.


You don't see that as coming to get you.


Discovery is the time that you take to build that long view before you dive into these


details.


So I want to start by covering everything that should go into a discovery project.


And because we do lots of different things at Kick Point, I'm going to cover all the


stuff that we would do because there's an endless amount of work out there with never


ending needs.


And competition is kind of an old school concept.


So if everyone who's listening today takes this and runs with it and you make your companies


better because of it, I think this is really good for the industry as a whole.


Anything we can do to make the marketing industry better just in general, like let's do it.


And this isn't necessarily an exhaustive list.


You may do things that we don't do at Kick Point, which is great.


So don't toss what's working for you just because I didn't happen to cover it in this


presentation.


I'm going to cover it in doing stuff that works for you as well.


So discovery should, first off, involve absolutely everyone in a project because everyone's going


to have different perspectives and goals on what they need to know before they're comfortable


moving ahead.


And sometimes people even on the same team who work together every day, maybe sit in


the same room.


Well, technically not right now, but in general sit in the same room.


They may not even realize that they have goals that are at cross purposes because what you


don't want to have happen is this, this horrible situation that happens where you get something


done and somebody says, so you talked to the CEO and everything you've done is crap and


we're going to have to do it over again, but we're not going to pay you for it, right?


You don't want this to happen.


All stakeholders you want to say in project direction need to be present from the very


kickoff of this discovery period.


If any new voices are added to the project, we reevaluate the scope, provide an estimate


for additional time and budget required.


This is an actual piece of language from our proposals.


We call this mystery voices.


This is to protect the project from the impact of those additional people who show up at


the end, mess everything up essentially.


And anyone out of your stakeholders, even if they aren't specifically on your team,


make sure they're there because they can also raise red flags you may not even be aware


of.


You know, I mean, I can remember very distinctly an example where we had a website that was


done, basically ready to go.


The project manager says, I'm just going to run this by the CEO.


We're like, oh, please don't.


And the CEO hadn't been involved at all up from that point.


No decisions at all, like had no input in the project.


And it's like, I hate everything.


We need to redo it and I'm not paying you for it.


That was a super horrible wait and project.


Discovery would have prevented that.


And also making sure you had everyone at the room at the same time also would have prevented


that.


So it's part of the reason why we have this mystery voices clause.


You know, and another example too, you know, you give a company logo concepts and they


say, oh, cool, we have a board meeting.


So we'll just run your logos past the board.


Don't let them do that because they weren't there at the kickoff.


They don't know the decisions.


And also, have you talked to this board before?


Have you met them?


Who are these people?


Right?


This is what Discovery, by making sure all the stake, pardon me, all the stakeholders


are there, at least you can have this conversation early and make sure everyone's at the table


at the same time.


Maybe not literally, virtually distant at the table from each other.


All right.


So the first thing that we're going to do in this kickoff is we're going to do what


we call a hopes and dreams session.


We usually start it by talking about reporting because starting at the end, when you're starting


the beginning is actually kind of a good thing to do.


Thinking ahead and thinking at the end of this project, what do you want to be able


to answer?


What do you want to be able to say?


And by starting reporting, it usually turns into a big discussion of what people are actually


responsible for.


One of my favorite questions is to ask out of all the things we're talking about in this


project, what in there affects their performance review?


What's going to make sure that they keep getting their job and they keep getting paid and they


keep getting raises?


So out of all this work, what matters to them?


Because that's really going to tell you what hill that they're fully willing to die on


as a part of this project.


And hopes and dreams as well is all about ignoring limitations.


So I tell people, forget everything you know or you think you know about analytics, about


SEO, PPC, websites reporting in a perfect world.


What would you want to say about this project when we're done?


Just tell us that.


What are the questions, the burning questions that you have about your day to day work?


What is the information that if you knew, you would be able to do a better job?


And maybe you can't do some of this.


Maybe some of the stuff they ask for is just, whoa, we can't do that.


But at least you can see how big that client is dreaming.


And sometimes it's something basic like, I want to know if I'm making money on our ads.


And sometimes it's, I want to be able to send different triggers to our chat program based


on different engagements that people have on the website in the past.


You can run the whole gamut.


But if you don't sit down and ask those blue sky type questions, then you're not going


to know.


Right.


This is also a really fun exercise to do is ask people about their best day ever.


This is really fun.


It was my business partner, Jen's, her idea to start asking clients this.


And when we first started asking clients this, they were like, no one's ever asked us this


before.


This is weird.


But then they really got into it, which was super fun.


So this is especially good for you in-house people, especially if you're starting a new


job.


And then you can find out their best day ever, because you're going to find out what really


matters to them.


Because that best day ever can be in the past, or it could be in the future.


And sometimes with newer businesses, if it's in the future, or if things are really quite


crap right now, it might be in the future.


Things are maybe not necessarily good for a lot of businesses at this current point


in time, and I'm recording this in June 2020.


But sometimes it's something in the past, a time where things are really clicking.


And then we can find out what worked and how we can get there again using a different path.


And sometimes I tell myself this a lot, is what got you here won't necessarily get you


there.


And I think that's an important thing to tell clients too, because it's a good metaphor


for lots of things, including why people need an agency.


What got them here isn't getting them there.


They're frustrated.


They don't know why.


It's your fault.


Or maybe it's the past agency's fault, but if you don't fix it, it's going to become


your fault.


And without discovery, you're going to have no way to know what that day looks like to


them.


And really, this gives you good language to help them get on board, because you can figure


out the kinds of words that matter for them too.


And in the past, I've talked about reporting at MozCon.


I mentioned the importance of microcopy, right?


Saying things back to clients in the ways in which they describe it.


So instead of saying phone call conversions, you want to say, did their phone ring?


This best day ever is actually where you find out a lot of that language.


And then you can start to build reports that use the words that they use, which really


humanizes this relationship and makes it strong between you and the client or you and your


in-house team.


So another question to ask is, why didn't this work last time?


And this is a really great question to ask if someone's come through a few agencies.


You can ask this in the pre-sales discussion, but let's be honest, right?


And especially in the interview process, nobody's going to be honest about like, well, we had


to fire our previous marketing manager because they sucked, right?


No one's going to say that.


They're going to make up some excuse.


They're not really going to tell you what's going on.


So by asking this question, once you've got that contract signed, you've got that job,


or you've got that contract going, then you're going to get all the dirty details.


And sometimes you also need to ask some really pointed questions too.


So dig around the Google Analytics or their Google Ads, ask that client or in-house about


who are these random people who have management permissions on your Google Ads.


And then you might find out about some contractor that you've had no idea about up until this


point.


Also, look at Glassdoor, see the reviews from employees.


How many agencies have they worked with in the past few years?


How many marketing people have cycled in and out of that department in the past few years?


What does the C-level makeup look like at that organization?


Who owns the company?


What does the board look like?


Do they have to report to stakeholders?


How involved is that board, right?


Now, because you're getting paid for this time, you can dig in and really start to get


a much fuller picture of the organization, not just this narrow silo of must buy ads


or must do SEO.


And there's always a few foundational pieces that we look at in every discovery.


And of course, your experience is going to vary, but this is what we consider if the


scope warrants it.


So first thing is analytics.


What do they use?


Do they have Google Tag Manager set up?


Having GTM or not is a really good barometer of how they're doing in terms of their analytics


sort of health.


And one good rule of thumb as well in how advanced an analytics setup is, is if they're


using custom dimensions or if you ask them what actions would make a visitor no longer


be considered a bounce.


And if they know the answer to that, great, if they've documented it even better, that


gives you sort of the sense of their analytics maturity.


What other pixels do they have running?


Are there services on their site they're no longer using and they just keep the pixel


on there?


So a lot of times, for example, we'll see that somebody tried out, say, Crazy Egg or


Full Story or one of those types of programs, and they decided not to continue with the


trial, but the pixel is still there happily running.


So that's a good sign to you that they don't have a good internal audit or governance strategy.


And that'll help you dig in to figure out what other sorts of exciting surprises might


be waiting for you.


Ads not just Google Ads, of course, there's all sorts of other ads platforms and offline


ads and other online ads.


Are they using tagging to properly sort ads?


There's lots of stuff showing up in that other channel in Google Analytics.


That's where good traffic goes to die.


How do they look at attribution?


Do they use a custom attribution model?


Do they know what attribution is?


Do they know their ad budget?


Are they able to tell you their ad budget when you ask them?


Do they have blocking charts?


Do they know when their ad's actually going to be running?


Do they have media buyers?


How do they scope out their ads for the year?


Find out all these sorts of things.


SEO as well, of course, you know, we've got to talk about that.


One of the things you might ask yourself is what year is their SEO program in?


Are they using tactics from 2020 or are they using tactics from 2010?


Heather Physiok had a really great SEO maturity model she talked about at MozCon, I think


it was two years ago.


Look at that and figure out where they are on that maturity model.


And similar to ads, how do they decide to attribute business and revenue to SEO versus


other channels?


How is that content process attached to the SEO process?


And is their answer to more traffic, more content?


Because sometimes more content is not actually the answer.


Sometimes you have volumes and volumes of really poor performing content.


More content is not always the answer.


In fact, at the time, it's probably not never the answer.


Social media, who's managing it?


Is that person an actual expert or do they run it off the side of their desk?


Are they spending an appropriate amount of time on social compared to what they're getting


or could be getting out of it?


I find that a lot of companies, when you look at, say, the traffic or the revenue that's


coming from social media, it's a tiny little percentage of the overall bucket, but they're


spending an outsized amount of time and money on social media.


How do they measure success in that case?


Are they chasing likes for the sake of likes?


What does their management team care about?


I find a lot of management teams are like, we just want to know that we have more followers


in our competition.


Well, if that's the case, just go buy some on Fiverr or you're actually investing in


social media for the sake of engaging your customers.


When it comes to branding and SEO people, maybe you just work SEO PPC, you don't touch


this branding stuff, you should still be asking these questions because at some point you're


going to need to know this information.


Is there a brand guide?


Start with that.


You might be surprised if you places actually have one or have one that's actually been


updated in the past couple of years.


Maybe it's a dusty PDF that no one's ever updated.


How are branded items evaluated?


So when new products are created or when new documents are put out, who evaluates it to


make sure it's following the brand standards?


Who's responsible for maintaining the brand?


You should definitely talk to them.


And do they have a brand voice?


That's going to matter when it comes to content and ad writing.


And then of course the website.


What platform is it on?


WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, something else.


Is it attached to a CRM of some kind?


Or is there a marketing automation system?


And if there is a marketing automation system, is it just a really expensive email program?


Are they actually setting up automations in their marketing automation system?


Where is the site hosted?


Where's their domain registered?


You would be shocked at how many companies have no idea where this stuff is.


We were recently dealing with a client where we had to add something to their DNS zone


and their domain record, and no one knew where the domain was, not even their IT company.


So that was thrilling.


Make sure that doesn't happen to you.


And in fact, this client used to have it.


They switched IT companies.


We didn't know.


And the new IT company just lost the domain.


So that was a weak delay on launching a site that shouldn't have happened.


How do they maintain their website as well?


How are changes approved to the website?


Can anyone just go in there and do stuff?


Or is there a process people have to follow?


How often is content reviewed and audited?


There's obviously way more here you can think about for a website, but you get the idea


of the sorts of things that we jump around on when it comes to websites.


And we've often asked the client as well to sit down and write out everything they used


that wasn't already covered in those previous questions.


So are there other things you're advertising on or using some sort of third party remarketing


solution for example?


And for each touch point, what phase of the client journey is that in?


I mean, the funnel, you know, that's a nice concept.


They may not have a nice linear one, two, three, four funnel.


Maybe it's sort of one, six, eight, 15 type funnel, but they must have some kind of client


journey.


They've written it out though.


That's something you can probably do as part of the discovery or at least the implementation.


So if they have that journey, what tools are involved in that touch point and who manages


those tools?


Do they know or do you have to figure out how much they're spending on each touch point?


Does the amount they're paying for each touch point, is it actually counted in their overall


cost per acquisition and does it make sense?


So let's say for example, they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on tools


that are super top of the funnel.


And then when it comes to bottom of the funnel or re-engagement of existing customers, there's


nothing showing up there.


They spent $8 on that, but they spend 1 million on top of the funnel, right?


Obviously super imbalanced.


And no one has probably sat down and did the math on that before.


You know, something for example, that we recently did even for ourselves, is we went through


the money we were spending on all the different tools.


Are we actually using it?


Who's using it?


When's the renewal period, et cetera.


And it was a really eye opening exercise.


If you don't do this regularly, you're going to accumulate a lot of crud and you're probably


wasting money you don't need to.


And then once you have this journey written out, I want you to be their client and follow


that journey.


Basically, mystery shop that company.


My business partner, Jen, she loves using chat programs on client websites and having


conversations with them as if she was a customer and seeing how that goes.


And then as your data goes into the system, follow it as it moves through their systems.


Goes to the website, does it go to CRM?


What happens to it?


Is it tied to analytics in some way?


Buy something.


See how that fulfillment process goes.


This is how, for example, you can have discussions about, there's a recent Twitter thread about,


should you allow Gmail addresses and B2B download forms?


Some people are pro, some people are against.


That's the time to have that kind of conversation.


Is this something that you want to try or do you want to cut that off?


And I think that's a good conversation to have at this point when you follow that journey.


Try lots of different things, try to break it and see what happens.


And the outcome of all these different questions and things we've done and digging up the dirt


and everything else that's happened is your plan.


So this isn't just what you're going to do, but it's also how long it's going to take


and how much it's going to cost in-house or agency, doesn't matter.


You need this discovery outcome to be as clear as possible because anyone, you, another agency,


someone else in your team, they should be able to take it and run with it.


Because you were paid for this time, if you were agency or because you were able to take


this time if you're in-house, you can get rid of the vagueness around details and actually


outline exactly what you're going to do.


I know from an agency standpoint, when I first started in the field in the Stone Age, one


of the things that I always worried about is I would write out a plan for a client.


And then what if they took that and ran with it and they didn't pay me to do implementation?


That's a scary thing.


And so you end up in this Western standoff where you're like, well, you tell me your


plan.


Will you tell me your plan?


You sign the proposal and it'll tell you the plan, right?


You don't want to have that kind of situation.


So this is where discovery can really help you just be open and honest.


And here's what we think you should do.


Let's talk about what we're going to do next.


The plan should include, and at a minimum, of course, because you may have more and some


of this depends on what you're covering in the discovery and what sort of fun surprises


you find.


So this is what this should include.


So first off, a gold charter, because when you get six months down the road, you're going


to need this to remind yourselves why you're here in the first place.


I talked about gold charters last year at MozCon.


I recommend watching that video.


I also talked about it a little bit the year before.


And we have a blog post on our website here at kickpoint.ca slash gold-charter that you


can check out to read more about gold charters.


And a good example of where a gold charter could be, for example, the recent Core Web


Metrics announcement, the Core Web Vitals from Google, where does that fit into your


gold charter?


You know it's important.


So what are you going to do with it?


Your charter should be nimble enough for you to know where these exciting new things fit


in without having to move everything else around.


But certainly, you want to make sure that you're not getting distracted and saying,


oh, everybody pivot to site speed when actually no one's converting because maybe your forms


suck.


So really making sure you're still staying focused while being able to be nimble and


responding to changes.


Analytics plan.


I think the analytics plans, I might be biased.


I think they need to be done as early as possible.


Again, talked about this last year at MozCon.


I recommend watching that video because I don't have time to get into it too much.


But really make sure you've got an analytics plan as early as possible because again, the


earlier you put this in, the better your reports are going to be at the end of the day.


Website blueprint.


This is a sitemap, but it's extra.


It has title tags.


It has meta descriptions.


It has what kind of content is going to be on each page.


How long is that content?


What is the main point of it?


What's the CTA?


What's the URL?


We build these for new websites we're developing, but also if you're auditing an existing website,


build a blueprint anyway because out of the blueprint, you can see this page has no call


to action or we have no idea why this page exists or Bob's super responsible for this


page.


We've got to make sure to interface with him every time we edit this page.


All that kind of stuff should come up in the blueprint.


And the marketing strategy.


You know, that extra thing you have to do and make sure to include tactics, right?


This isn't a template.


This is built custom for them based on the discovery to achieve what you've covered in


the goal charter.


Be specific here.


So and then on top of the actual plan, you're going to find out new exciting bonus content


in your DLC like internal politics.


You're going to find out who the true decision makers are, which may not be your main contact


who you thought was the decision maker.


Timeframes for example, is this a hurry up and wait client?


Do they get you stuff on time?


Do they feel the deadline is just an illusion?


They don't really matter and they really enjoy the noise of the whooshing by.


And how much does everyone you'll be working with actually know about the different things


you're going to be doing and are they willing to admit when they don't know things, which


is a really important thing to find out as early as possible in a project.


And another thing too, like is the project manager you were given actually experienced


enough to carry the rest of the project through or are you maybe not even talking to the right


people to make this happen?


You know, all this going to come out in the discovery.


You're also showing your own expertise as part of this.


You might find some quick and easy wins along the way too.


So for example, one time in discovery, we found that on a client's website, they were


double counting telephone call goals when they came from mobile because they were counting


when you tap on the phone number and they were counting the call tracking from CallRail.


Not great.


So it meant that their ads looked way better than they should have been from mobile.


It was kind of sad when we had told the client that and be like, actually your ads aren't


as great as you think they are.


They're still not bad, but they're not spectacular.


But you know, it's something that you find early on.


For them, they were like, yeah, we always wondered.


The report seemed just a little too good, but we didn't know what the problem was.


And so that's something you can fix super easy as a part of the discovery.


And then, you know, you've already built this relationship.


You started this momentum with the client to keep going.


And sometimes too, the answer is you don't need that.


Maybe you don't actually need a brand new website or maybe you horribly need a new website


before you spend one more dollar in SEO or PPC.


Or you discover when you're going through Google reviews that one individual is responsible


for 80% of the bad reviews at your company.


And maybe you internally need to make sure that HR deals with that little problem before


you keep spending time trying to get good reviews when this person is going to undo


all of your good reviews with all the bad reviews that they're bringing in.


I know discovery is the perfect time to shine a light on this because it's not going in


the inner doing.


It's just we looked at everything.


Here's what we found.


So and so is really causing you a lot of problems, right?


You don't want to spend this time spinning your wheels trying to combat someone who's


undoing all your hard work.


And an important point too is how are you going to sell this, right?


And get the team on board, especially when you have people from lots of different diverse


teams.


You've got your paid media team, you've got your content team, you've got your IT team,


you've got your analytics team, right?


How are they all talking to each other?


And this is where you need to make sure that you're really having a conversation with people


about what they're going to get out of this.


Sometimes you might even want to tell a horror story, right?


I've shared a few during this talk, but you might have your own as well.


But be honest and say that the result of discovery is so that they're getting the clearest quote


possible and they're getting the best fit for what they actually need.


You're not just going in there and doing stuff and hoping something works.


You're going in there and doing stuff with a purpose.


You could say this is how as well for in-house people, you need to know if you need an outside


agency or not is by doing this discovery.


The plan is going to be just that detailed so that everyone knows what the plan is and


that everyone can actually do their part of the plan to make it happen.


And also you might get this objection.


No thanks.


We've had enough research.


I'm full.


We don't need any more.


And you probably think, you know, this sounds silly.


I don't need to do this.


I know what I'm doing.


You don't.


You can just dive right in.


And I have to tell you, the more discovery we do, the less confident I feel about just


diving in with clients.


You know, I mean, I've been doing this for, as I said, 20 years now.


And discovery has really honestly changed the way in which we approach clients and the


way in which I myself approach clients and how we approach new projects.


It really makes a big positive difference in how the outcome of the project is going


to be.


I really recommend that maybe you think you've done enough research.


Great.


Use that research as part of discovery.


Maybe it won't take as long, but you're still going to find some pretty crazy stuff that


isn't going to come up in any sort of research report.


And sometimes two people might think the grass is greener on the other side of discovery.


And you know what?


I think that's true.


The grass is actually greener on the other side of discovery because the client isn't


committing to a big project, a retainer, a monthly engagement.


You're not coming in there and saying, $20,000 a month.


Thank you so much.


Sign on the line.


You're saying, we're not sure yet.


Let's figure it out.


And then we're going to know exactly what we're talking about instead of just picking


stuff.


They get to know you as well as you get to know them, right?


This is a marriage.


You want to maybe date a little bit before you decide to get married.


And there's actually some movement, which means it's really nice to get that momentum


going before you get into the actual doing of the work.


And they get a really honest deliverable because you want everyone to start off from an honest


point of reference.


And so everything you've looked at is just uncovering stuff without judgment so you can


put a solid plan together.


It really almost feels like a DNA test you send away from, right?


Like some of the mysteries that have haunted this organization get unpacked and explained.


Like maybe we should have more business.


Look at all these conversions.


Something's going on in sales.


Or look, you're spending $4,000 a month in Google ads, but your closest competitor is


spending $1,000 a month.


Why are we spending so much more than that?


And often too, when you have a task to do and it's big like marketing, it can be really


hard to get that task going.


But once you started, it gets way easier.


This discovery is the start of that task.


Discovery means that you have a project that's built specifically for you based on your goals


and your needs and your team and your budget.


Instead of just taking someone else's successes, rewriting it with your name in there and hoping


Using STAT to Idenitfy Featured Snippet Opportunities — Whiteboard Friday 1

Hi, I'm Zoe from Moz's learning team. Today I'm going to be showing you how to use STAT


to identify featured snippet opportunities. If you're not familiar with STAT, it's a ranking


tool which is very good at pulling big data. For those of you that might not know what


a featured snippet is, it's one of those answer boxes that appear at the top of a search results


page. It's the result that shows up directly beneath the ads after the search has performed.


So for example, if you did a search for something like, is coffee good for you? You're going


to see an answer box saying, recent studies found that coffee drinkers are less likely


to die from some of the leading causes of death. Yay. Websites that have URLs ranked


in the featured snippet often experience heightened brand visibility and the majority of available


traffic from the associated keyword. Where do you start if you want to become a part


of that feature snippet box? How do you target those opportunities? Well, the first step


here is keyword research. You want to discover keywords that you can start monitoring and


optimising for. Ideally, you want to find keywords you rank on page one for that also


have a featured snippet. STAT's keywords tab is a great place to start with this. In this


feature, you can upload a bunch of keywords and once you've allowed some time for that


data to gather, you can really dig into what keywords you have that are triggering answer


boxes and what opportunities there are. There's an extremely useful feature in STAT where


you can filter a table of keywords to show owned cert features and specifically answers.


You can filter for specific answer subtypes too. STAT currently pass lists, paragraphs,


tables, carousels and videos. So you can check out all of these. You should also filter for


keywords specifically on page one. To do that, filter the rank column to show results ranking


between one and 10. Once you've found those keywords, there's a really smart, useful way


of collecting them all together. And that's by putting them into a dynamic tag. This lets


you group those keywords together and label them. You could call this tag featured snippet


opportunities, for example. The magic of putting the keywords into that dynamic tag is that


acts like a smart playlist. These fancy segments automatically populate each day with keywords


that match the specific criteria you set for them, making it quick and easy to see which


of your keywords are featured opportunities. Being able to segment keywords into these


dynamic tags is what makes that so much more valuable. Being able to create reports and


granular keyword levels is powerful stuff. Okay, so what is the next step to prioritize


your feature snippet opportunities by the highest potential ROI keywords? It's usually


much easier to take a feature snippet or to steal one if you're also on page one. Taking


a look at stats, search feature tab can help out here. There's a nifty graph which allows


you to see how answer boxes appear if your keywords have changed over time. Using this


will help you to access opportunity. You can then start pulling out comparing some of that


data and digging into things like average monthly search volume, current featured snippet


URLs and the feature snippet type. Is it a paragraph, a list or a table? Is there any


markup? What's your rank? How does the page look in general? You might want to start investigating


which long tail keywords you could potentially optimize your site for. There are a couple


of reports you can pull in stat which can definitely help you in this research. The


people also ask report will show you questions and their rank within the box, as well as


the URL sourced in each answer. It's worth taking a look at the related searches report


as well to see related search queries offered by Google, which users may also be searching.


Once you're identified long tail keywords you want to track and keep an eye on, you


can copy and paste those keywords into Google Keyword Planner or even back into stat. That


way you can see what the rankings, search volume and CPC look like. You can use one


of those smart dynamic tags in stat to group and label them up again as you start optimizing


on the keywords you think are valuable to your site. Once you've identified and optimized


your site, you'll want to keep careful watch over your hard work. So monitor. I recommend


setting up alerts for this. Stat lets you do this so be notified anytime your ranking


goes up or down for your featured snippet target keywords, meaning you're not going


to missing an opportunity. I hope this has been helpful and you're feeling more prepared


to try some of this. If you already have a stat subscription and want to get even more


familiar with the tool features, think about taking the stat fundamentals certification


Should I Rebrand and Redirect My Website? - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Today we're going to chat a little bit about whether you should rebrand and consider redirecting


your existing website or websites, and whether you should potentially consolidate multiple


websites and brands that you may be running.


So we've talked before about redirection moves best practices.


We've also talked about the splitting of link equity and domain authority and those kinds


of things.


But one of the questions that people have is, gosh, you know, I have a website today


and given the moves that Google has been making, that the social media world has been making,


that content marketing has been making, I'm wondering whether I should potentially rebrand


my site.


Maybe people bought domains back in the day that were exact match domains or partial match


domains or that they thought reflected a move of the web toward or away from less brand-centric


stuff and toward more keyword matching, topic matching, intent matching kinds of things.


Maybe you're reconsidering those moves and you want to know, hey, should I be thinking


about making a change now?


And that's what I'm here to answer.


So this question, right, to rebrand or not to rebrand, it is tough because you know that


when you do that rebrand, you will almost certainly take a traffic hit.


And SEO is one of the biggest places where people typically take that traffic hit.


So Moz previously was at SEOmoz.org and moved to moz.com.


We saw a dip in our traffic from over about three to four months before it fully recovered.


And I would say that dip was between 15 and 25 percent of our search traffic, depending


on week to week.


I'll link to a list of metrics that I put on my personal blog, moz.com slash ran, so


that you can check those out if you'd like to see them.


But it was a short recovery time for us.


One of the questions that people always have is, well, wait, did you lose rankings for


SEO since SEO used to be in your domain name?


And the answer is no.


In fact, six months after the move, we were ranking higher for SEO-related terms and phrases.


So let's imagine that today you are running sci-fi toys and games dot com, which is right


on the borderline, right?


In my opinion, that's right on the borderline of barely tolerable, like it could be brandable,


but it's not great.


And I don't love the sci-fi in here because, well, partially because of how the sci-fi


channel, the entity that broadcasts stuff on television, has chosen to delineate their


spelling.


Sci-fi can be misinterpreted as to how it's spelled.


I don't love having to have and in a domain name, this is long, all sorts of stuff.


Let's say you also own star toys dot com, but you haven't used it.


Previously star toys dot com has been redirecting to sci-fi toys and games dot com, and you're


thinking, well, man, is it the right time to make this move?


Should I make this change now?


Should I wait for the future?


Well, these are the questions that I would urge you to consider.


How memorable and amplifiable is your current brand?


That's something that if you are recognizing like, hey, I think our brand name, in fact,


is holding us back in search results and social media amplification and press, in blog mentions


and journalist links and all these kinds of things, well, that's something serious to


think about.


Word of mouth, too.


Will you maintain your current brand name long term?


So if you know that sometime in the next two, three, four, five years you do want to move


to star toys, I would actually strongly urge you to do that right now.


Because the longer you wait, the longer it will take to build up the signals around the


new domain and the more pain you'll potentially incur by having to keep branding this and


working on this old brand name.


So I would strongly urge you, if you know you're going to make the move eventually,


make it today.


Take the pain now rather than more pain later.


Can or have you tested brand preference with your target audience, target customers?


I would urge you to find two different groups.


One who are loyal customers today, people who know sci-fi toys and games dot com and


have used it.


And two, people who are potential customers but aren't yet familiar with it.


You don't need to do big sample sizes.


If you can get five, 10, 15 people either in a room or talk to them in person, you can


try some web surveys, you can try using some social media ads like things on Facebook.


I've seen some companies do some testing around this.


Even buying potential PPC ads and seeing how click-through rates perform and sentiment


and those kinds of things, that is a great way to help validate your ideas, especially


if you're forced to bring data to a table by executives or other stakeholders.


The last thing I think about is imagine—I want you to either imagine or even model this


out, mathematically model it out.


If your traffic growth rate—so let's say you're growing at 10% year over year right


now—if that improved 1%, 5%, or 10% annually with a new brand name, would you make the


move?


So knowing that you might take a short-term hit but then that your growth rate would be


incrementally higher in years to come, how big would that growth rate need to be?


And I would say that in general, if I were thinking about these two domains—granted,


this is a hard case because you don't know exactly how much more brandable or word-of-mouth-able


or amplifiable your existing one or your new one might be compared to your existing one—well,


gosh, my general thing here is if you think that's going to be a substantive percentage,


say 5% plus, almost always it's worth it because compound growth rate over a number of years


will mean that you're winning big time.


Remember that that growth rate is different than raw growth.


If you can incrementally increase your growth rate, you get tremendously more traffic when


you look back two, three, four, five years later.


I also made this domain name, brand name spectrum because I wanted to try and visualize like


crappiness of domain name, brand name to like really good domain name, brand name.


I wanted to give some examples and then extract out some elements so that maybe you can start


to build on these things thematically as you're considering your own domains.


From awful, we go to tolerable, good, and great.


Science hyphen phi—oh, God—hyphen toys dot net.


It's obviously terrible.


I've taken a contraction of the name and the actual one and it's got a dot net.


It's using hyphens.


It's infinitely unmemorable up to I think what is tolerable.


Sci-fi toys and games dot com.


It's long.


There's some questions about how type-innable it is, how easy it is to type in.


Sci-fi toys dot com, which that's pretty good, right?


Sci-fi toys, relatively short, concise.


Still has the sci-fi in there, but it's a dot com.


We're getting better.


All the way up to I really love the name Star Toys.


I think it's very brandable, very memorable.


It's concise.


It's easy to remember and type in.


It has positive associations, probably with most science fiction toy buyers who are familiar


with at least Star Wars or Star Trek.


It's cool, right?


It has some astronomy connotations too.


Just a lot of good stuff going on with that domain name.


Then another one, region hyphen data hyphen api dot com.


That sucks.


Neighborhood info dot com.


Okay, at least I know what it is.


neighborhood is a really hard name to type because it's very hard for many people to


spell and to remember.


It's long.


I don't totally love it.


I don't love the info connotation, which is generic-y.


District data dot com has a nice alliterative ring to it, but maybe we could do even better.


Actually there is a company, walk score dot com, which I think is wonderfully brandable


and memorable and really describes what it is without being too in your face about the


generic brand of we have regional data about places.


What if you're doing mobile apps, right?


Best android apps dot com.


You might say, why is that an awful?


The answer is two things.


One, it's the length of the domain name and then the fact that you're actually using someone


else's trademark in your name, which can be really risky, especially if you start blowing


up, getting big.


Google might go and say, oh, do you have android in your domain name?


We'll take that, please.


Thank you very much.


Best apps dot io.


In the tech world it's very popular to use dimensions like dot io, dot ly.


Unfortunately, I think once you venture outside of the high tech world, it's really tough


to get people to remember that that is a domain name.


If you put up a billboard that says best apps dot com, the vast majority of people will


go, oh, that's a website.


But if you use dot io, dot ly, or one of the new domain names, dot ninja, a lot of people


won't even know to connect that up with, oh, they mean an internet website that I can type


into my browser or look for.


We have to remember that we sometimes live in a bubble.


Outside of that bubble are a lot of people who, if it's not dot com, questionable as


to whether they're even going to know what it is.


Remember outside of the US, country code domain names work equally well.


Dot co dot uk, dot ca, dot co dot za, wherever you are.


All this dot com, now we're getting better.


Memorable, clear.


And then all the way up to, I really like the name app critic dot com.


I have positive associations with like, oh yeah, restaurant critics and food critics


and movie critics and this is an app critic.


Great.


Very cool.


Okay.


What are the things that are in here?


Well, stuff at this end of the spectrum tends to be generic, forgettable, hard to type in.


That's long, brand infringing, danger, danger, and sketchy sounding.


It's hard to quantify what sketchy sounding is, but you know it when you see it.


When you're reviewing domain names, you're looking for links, you're looking at things


in the SERPs, you're like, I don't know about this one.


Having that sixth sense is something that we all develop over time.


Sketchy sounding, not quite as scientific as I might want for a description, but powerful.


On this end of the spectrum though, domain names and brand names tend to be unique, memorable,


short.


They use dot com.


Unfortunately, still the gold standard.


Easy to type in, pronounceable.


That's a powerful thing too, especially because of word of mouth.


We suffered with that for a long time with SEOmoz because many people saw it and thought,


oh, shawmoz, SEOmoz, Cmoz.


It sucked.


You have positive associations like Star Toys or Walk Score or App Critic.


They have these positive pre-built in associations psychologically that suggest something brandable.


Scenario B, and then we'll get to it at the end, but scenario B is the question like,


should I consolidate?


Let's say I'm running both of these today.


Or more realistic, and many times I see people like this, you're running appcritic.com and


startoys.com and you think, boy, these are pretty separate, but then you keep finding


overlap between them.


Your content tends to overlap.


Your audience tends to overlap.


Find this with many, many folks who run multiple domains.


We've got to consider a few things.


First off, that audience and content overlap.


If you've got Star Toys and App Critic and the overlap is very thin, just that little


tiny piece in the middle there, the content doesn't overlap much, the audience doesn't


overlap much.


It probably doesn't make that much sense.


What if you're finding like, gosh, man, we're writing more and more about apps and tech


and mobile and web stuff on Star Toys, and we're writing more and more about other kinds


of geeky fun things on App Critic, and slowly it feels like these audiences are merging.


Now you might want to consider that consolidation.


Second point of consideration, the potential for separate exits or sales.


If you know that you're going to sell appcritic.com to someone in the future and you want to make


sure that's separate from Star Toys, you should keep them separate.


If you think to yourself, gosh, I'd never sell one without the other.


They're really part of the same company, brand, effort.


Well, I'd really consider that consolidation.