#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

You can start to refurbish your content and expand your reach online which is really exciting.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

In addition to that, it is also interesting to play around with the idea of providing


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

people options to consume your content.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Even with this Whiteboard Friday, we could have an audio version that people could just


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

listen to if they were on their commute.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

We have the transcription.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Provide options for people to consume your content.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Prune or improve thin or low quality pages.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

This has been incredibly powerful for myself and many other SEOs I know in improving the


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

perceived quality of a site.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Consider testing and meta no indexing low quality thin pages on a website, especially


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

larger websites.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

We see a pretty big impact there.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Get customer insights.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

This will continue to be valuable in understanding your target market.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

It will be valuable for influencer marketing for all sorts of reasons.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

One of the incredible tools that are currently available by our Whiteboard Friday extraordinaire


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Ran Fishkin is SparkToro.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

You guys have to check that out when it gets released soon.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Super exciting.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Find keyword opportunities in Google Search Console.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

It's shocking how few people do this and how accessible it is.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

If you go into your Google Search Console and you export as much data as you can around


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

your queries, your click-through rate, your position and impressions, you can do some


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

incredible simple visualizations to find opportunities.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

For example, if this is the rank of your keywords and this is the click-through rate, where


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

do you have high click-through rate but low ranking position?


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

What are those opportunity keywords?


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Incredibly valuable.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

You can do this in all sorts of tools.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

One I recommend and I will create a little tutorial for is a free tool called Facets


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

made by Google for machine learning.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

It makes it really easy to pick those apart.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

A couple quick link building tactics for 2020 that will continue to work very well.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Create link intent keywords and what I mean by link intent keywords is your keyword statistics,


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

your keyword facts.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

These are searches people naturally want to reference.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

They want to link to it.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

They want to cite it in a presentation.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

If you can build really great content around those link intent keywords, you can do incredibly


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

well and naturally build links to a website.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Podcasts, whether you are a guest or a host on a podcast, it is incredibly easy to get


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

links surprisingly.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

It is kind of a fun link building hack.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Provide unique research with visuals.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Andy Crestadina does this so incredibly well.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

So explore creating your own unique research and not making it too commercial but valuable


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

for users.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

I know this was a lot going on in 2020 but I hope some of this is valuable to you.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

I truly cannot wait to hear your thoughts on these recommendations, things you think


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

I missed, things that you would remove or change.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

Please let us know down below in the comments.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020

I will see you all soon.


#WhiteboardFriday: SEO for 2020


#WhiteboardFriday: Google Posts: Conversion Factor Not Ranking Factor

Howdy Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Fridays. I'm Greg Gifford, the


Vice President of Search at Search Lab, a boutique digital marketing agency specializing


in local SEO and paid search. And I'm here today to talk about, you guessed it, Google


Posts, the feature on Google My Business that lets you post interesting and attractive things


to attract potential customers. Mike Blumenthal said it first, your Google My Business listing


is your new home page. And then we all kind of stole it and everybody says it now, but


it's totally true. It's the first impression that you make with potential customers. If


someone wants your phone number, they don't have to go to your site to get it anymore.


Or if they need your address to get directions, or if they want to check out photos of your


business, or they want to see hours or reviews, they can do it all right there on the search


engine results page. If you're a local business, one that serves customers face to face at


a physical storefront location, or that serves customers at their location, like a plumber


or an electrician, then you're eligible to have a Google My Business listing. And that


listing is a major element of your local SEO strategy. You need to stand out from competitors


and show potential customers why they should check you out. And Google Posts are one of


the best ways to do just that thing. For those of you who don't know about Google Posts,


they were released back in 2016. And they used to show up at the top of your Google


My Business panel. And most businesses went crazy over them. In October of 2018, they


moved them down to the very bottom of the GMB panel on desktop and out of the overview


panel on mobile results. And most people kind of lost interest because they thought there


would be a huge loss of visibility. But honestly, it doesn't matter. They're still incredibly


effective when they're used correctly. Posts are basically free advertising on Google.


You heard that right. They're free advertising. They show up in Google search results, seriously,


especially effective on mobile when they're mixed in with other organic results. But even


on desktop, they help your business attract potential customers and stand out from other


local competitors. More importantly, they can drive pre-site conversions. You've heard


about zero-click search. Now people can convert without getting to your site. They appear


as a thumbnail, an image with a little bit of text underneath. And then when the user


clicks on the thumbnail, the whole post pops up in a pop-up window that basically fills


the window on either mobile or desktop. Now they have no influence on ranking. They're


a conversion factor, not a ranking factor. Think of it this way though. If it takes you


10 minutes to create a post and you do only one a week, that's just 40 minutes a month.


If you get a conversion, isn't it worth doing? And if you do them correctly, you can get


a lot more than just one conversion. In the past, I would have told you that posts stay


live in your profile for seven days, unless you use one of the post templates that includes


a date range, in which case they stay live for the entire date range. But it looks like


Google has changed the way that posts work. And now Google displays your 10 most recent


posts in a carousel with a little arrow to scroll through. And then when you get to the


end of those 10 posts, it has a link to view all of your older posts. Now you shouldn't


pay attention to most of what you see online about posts because there's a ridiculous amount


of misinformation or simply outdated information out there. Quick tip. Be careful about the


text that you use. Anything with sexual connotation will get your post denied. This is really


frustrating for some industries. If you put up a post about weather stripping, you get


vetoed because of the word stripping. Or if you're a plumber and you post about toilet


repairs or unclogging a toilet, you get denied for using the word toilet. So be careful if


you have anything that might be on that no-no naughty list. The full post contains an image


opens behind me. A full post has the image and then text with up to 1500 characters.


And that's all most people pay attention to. But the post thumbnail is the key to success.


No one's going to see the full post if the thumbnail isn't enticing enough to click on.


Think of it like you're creating a paid search campaign. You need really compelling copy


if you want more clicks on your ad or a really awesome image to attract attention if it's


a banner image. The same principle applies to posts. It's also important to be sure that


your posts are promotional. People are seeing these posts in the search results before they


go to your site. So in most cases, they have no idea who you are yet. The typical social


fluff that you share on other social platforms doesn't work. And don't share links to blog


posts or a simple, hey, we sell this message because those don't work. Remember, your users


are shopping around and trying to figure out where they want to buy so you want to grab


their attention with something promotional. And most of the stuff out there will tell


you that that post thumbnail displays 100 characters of text or about 16 words broken


into four distinct lines. But in reality, it's different depending on which post template


you use and whether or not you include a call to action link, which then replaces that last


line of text. But hey, we're all marketers, so why wouldn't we include a CTA link? There


are three main post types. In the vast majority of cases, you want to use the what's new post


template. That's the one that allows for the most text in the thumbnail view. So it's easier


to write something compelling. Now with the what's new post, once you include that call


to action, it replaces that last line so you end up with three full lines of available


text space. Both the event and offer post templates include a title and then a date


range. And some people dig the date range because the post stays visible for that whole


date range. But now that posts stay live and visible forever, there's no advantage there.


Both of those post types have that separate title line, then a separate date range line,


and then the call to action link is going to be on the fourth line, which leaves you


only a single line of text or just a few words to write something compelling. Sure, the offer


post has a cool little price tag emoji there next to the title and some limited coupon


functionality, but that's not a reason. You should have full coupon functionality on your


site, so it's better to write something compelling with a what's new post template and then have


the user click through on the call to action link to get to your site to get more information


and convert there. There's also a new COVID update post type, but you don't want to use


it. It shows up a lot higher on your Google My Business profile, actually just below your


top line information, but it's text only. Only text, no image. And if you've got an


active COVID post, Google hides all of your other active posts. So if you want to share


a COVID info post or updates about COVID, it's better to use the what's new post template


instead. The image is the frustrating part of things. Cropping is super wonky and really


inconsistent. And in fact, you could post the same image multiple times and it'll crop


slightly differently each time. And the fact that the crop is slightly higher than vertical


center and also a different size between mobile and desktop makes it really frustrating. The


important areas of your image can get cropped out, so half of your product ends up being


gone or your text gets cropped out or things get really hard to read. Now, there's a rudimentary


cropping tool built into the image upload function with posts, but it's not locked to


an aspect ratio. So then you're going to end up with black bars either on the top or on


the side if you don't crop it to the correct aspect ratio, which is, by the way, 1200 pixels


width by 900 pixels high. And you need to have a handle on what the safe area is within


the image. So to make things easier, we created this Google post cropping guide. It's a Photoshop


document with built-in guides to show you what the safe area is. You can download it


at bit.ly slash posts dash image dash guide. Make sure you put that in lowercase because


it's case sensitive. But it looks like this. Anything within that white grid is safe and


that's what's going to show up in that post thumbnail. But then when you see the full


post, the rest of the image shows up. So you can get really creative and have things like


here's the image, but then when it pops up, there's additional text at the bottom. Now


for the call to action link, you need to be sure that you include UTM tracking because


Google Analytics doesn't always attribute that traffic correctly, especially on mobile.


Now if you include UTM tagging, you can ensure that the clicks are attributed to Google organic


and then you can use the campaign variable to differentiate between the posts that you


published. So you'll be able to see which posts generated more click-throughs or more


conversions and then you can adjust your strategy moving forward to use the more effective post


types. So for those of you that aren't super familiar with UTM tagging, it's basically


adding a query string like this to the end of the URL that you're tagging. So it forces


Google Analytics to attribute the session a certain way that you're specifying. So here's


the structure that I recommend using when you do Google posts. It's your domain on the


left. Then question, UTM source is GMB post, so it's separated. Then UTM medium is organic


and UTM campaign is some sort of post identifier. Some people like to use Google as the source,


but at a high level, when you look at your source medium report, that traffic all gets


lumped together with everything from Google. So sometimes it's confusing for clients who


don't really understand that they can look at secondary dimensions to break apart that


traffic. So more importantly, it's easier for you to see your post traffic separately


when you look at the default source medium report. You want to leave organic as your


medium so that it's lumped and grouped correctly on the default channel report with all organic


traffic. And then you enter some sort of identifier, some sort of text string or date that can


let you know which you're talking about with that campaign variable. So make sure it's


something unique so that you know which post you're talking about, whether it's car post,


oil post, or a date range, or the title of the post so you know when you're looking in


Google Analytics. It's also important to mention that Google My Business Insights will show


you the number of views and clicks, but it's a bit convoluted because multiple impressions


and or multiple clicks from the same users are counted independently. That's why adding


the UTM tagging is so important for tracking accurately your performance. And final note,


you can also upload videos. So a video shows in the thumbnail and in the post. So when


users see that thumbnail that has a little play button on it and they click it, when


the post pops up, the video will play there. Now the file size limit is 30 seconds or 75


megabytes, which if you've got commercials, that's basically the perfect size. So even


though they've been around for a few years, most businesses still ignore posts. And now


you know how to rock posts so you'll stand out from competitors and generate more click-throughs.


Hopefully you enjoyed the video and if you've got any additional tips to share, please throw


MozCon 2014 - 22 - Paddy Moogan - Beyond SEO - Tactics for Integrated Marketing Campaigns

Good morning, guys.


So this was me at MarchCon two years ago.


And what I spoke about back then was what I was saying,


link building.


And this is kind of the talk that I gave back then.


And it went down pretty well.


I got some good feedback afterwards,


got lots of good comments.


And the speaker scores were pretty good.


So as I was preparing for this MarchCon,


I figured, why reinvent the wheel?


So people wanted those actual tips, right?


They wanted the takeaways.


They wanted things they could go away and do straight away.


So that's what I'm going to do.


20 tips across a range of marketing areas


that you guys can all go away and use.


They're designed for anyone to use.


Quick question first.


It's kind of tough to see, but let's give this a try.


Who was at MarchCon two years ago and saw?


We saw.


Oh, wait, it's actually, wait, thanks for coming back.


OK, so you may remember that I talked about this stuff


and probably a little bit more than I should have done,


to be honest.


Those of you that weren't here, I kind of


said that if you wanted more than the tips


from the presentation, you could just feed me Guinness


and you get tips as a result. And I made a bit of a bold claim


back then, that there was a direct correlation


between number of link building tips I gave away


and the reponse of Guinness that I consumed.


Now, after careful consideration of the data after last MarchCon,


it's more like this.


And I'm really open to the idea that feed me Guinness,


I'll give you more tips.


But try and get me before that curve goes the other way,


because I can't guarantee the quality or the legality


of the tips I'll give away after that point.


So let's get going.


Straight into the tips.


Start off with organic search.


The first tip I'm going to give, a really simple one.


Just go and use this tool.


The guy Gareth that built it is sat over the back there


by the doors.


He's taking feature requests.


It's a really, really cool tool.


This is what it looks like.


You're pasting a list of URLs from OSC, Majestic, Ahrefs,


Webmaster Tools.


And you can select all these different data points


that you've got often grabbed for you.


Now, this is really cool, because it mashes together


Majestic, Citation Flow, Mars metrics as well,


all sorts of different things into one data set.


And there's loads of really, really cool features


I've not got time to talk about.


But it's a really cool tool.


There's a free version as well.


I think Gareth's going to do a discount for MarsCon attendees,


which I'll tweet afterwards.


It's a really cool tool.


The tip I want to give away in relation to it


is to be actively disavowing and removing the low quality links


that you find when doing link auditing.


Even if you don't think you've been hit by a penguin,


even if you haven't got a manual penalty,


if you've got links that are clearly low quality,


ones when you look at them and you really


know they're not good, try and remove them.


Try and disavow them.


Now, we've learned about this at Distilled.


We've got a client where we've got some pretty good links.


And they've got a pretty shady past.


They've done a lot of bad link building in the past.


And what we're seeing is that these kind of links


don't necessarily outweigh all the stuff that's


been done in the past.


Instead, we need to get rid of the stuff that's


happened in the past for these to have the full effect.


So make sure you're removing crap links,


disavowing them, because this kind of work


won't be as effective if you don't do that.


Number two, when you start a project,


it's really easy to dive straight in and go, hey,


what new stuff can we do?


What things can we create?


What content can we do?


But oftentimes, there's things sitting right under your nose


that you can use rather than getting into new stuff.


It's important to audit those.


And I'm going to give a few examples.


One is social, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest,


Instagram.


There's a bunch of social channels that you can use.


Brewdog, they're a craft beer company in the UK.


Now, they've got a good social following, not millions,


but 50,000.


That's pretty good.


So for these guys, they could use a tool like Followwonk,


great tool from Moz, that you can


dive into the followers themselves


and find bloggers, journalists, writers, people


that have got their own websites.


You can see people who have got their own social followings,


the kinds of people who you want to engage with.


And what you then do is take those people out,


push them into a separate list, and start


looking for ways to connect with those people.


Because they already like your brand.


They've already shown a connection.


All you've got to do is reach out to them and say, OK,


can we do some sort of event together?


Can we do content promotion together?


Can you input on our product lines?


And just start building those relationships.


This is another really overlooked asset, people.


I'm going to give you a real example from a Distil client.


We work with a hotel chain.


And we did some link building training


for their hotel managers in London.


And we talked to them about link building,


gave them the background, the theory, that kind of stuff.


Gave them some ideas for what they could do to get links.


And gave them an idea of what a good link was


and what a bad link was.


But we also incentivized them to do their own link building.


And we gave them a really good idea


of what quality looks like.


And we only incentivized them and gave them prizes


and bonuses if they built quality links.


And this worked really well.


After a few months, they built about 70 or 80 links


to their domains.


And they needed that incentive.


They needed that help and that guidance.


But once they got it, all we had to do


was provide an overview and see what they were doing


and make sure we were monitoring and giving them feedback


wherever necessary.


Scrapebox.


OK.


So when I spoke to my boss at Distilled


about talking about Scrapebox at MozCon,


it was kind of the look that he gave me.


On the other hand, when I spoke to Phil,


he was like, Scrapebox, yeah.


OK, let's do it.


So Scrapebox can be a really bad tool.


You can use it for all sorts of things.


But there's some good ways you can use it as well.


And I want to give just one of those tips away.


So if you're doing keyword research for content creation,


there's a feature on Scrapebox that will go off


and scrape Google Suggest, Amazon, Yahoo, Google Product


Suggest, all sorts of different sources.


So you can start with a simple keyword.


In this case, I want to create content


around photography tips.


Scrapebox then allows you to append A to Z


to all those keywords.


So you end up with a seed list of 27.


It will then go off and scrape all the different sources


and bring back a list of keywords.


This only ran for about a minute.


It came back with over 1,000 results.


So you can run it for longer and get more.


What you then do is take the results,


paste them into something like Excel,


find and replace the original keyword, in this case,


photography and tips.


Take what's left over, paste them into a workload,


and you'll see something like this.


Now, these are the trends of what


people are searching for across all those different sources.


So it gives us a place to start from when


it comes to content creation.


But the keywords that we know people are searching for.


SEMrush is a great tool.


Again, lots of features.


I'm just going to talk about one of them.


When you go to the keywords report on SEMrush,


there's a little button called SERP source.


Now, I missed this quite a lot when I was using the tool.


It kind of went straight by me.


But it's really, really useful.


When you click through on that to a certain keyword,


you'll get a page that looks like this.


Now, this is a natural snapshot of the ranking


for cheap flights, in this case, the 9th of July.


So it doesn't just scrape your rankings.


It scrapes what the actual page looked


like at that point in time.


So if you're trying to debug ranking changes


and see, well, what happens around this time.


We've seen a drop or an increase.


It's a lot easier to then go back and say, well, we can see.


We can see exactly what happens.


And SEMrush gives you all of that data.


It's really, really cool.


Another great tool, NerdyData.


It's basically a search engine for source code.


They go in and index the web.


And you can search the source code that it finds.


Now, there's loads of really cool uses for this.


You can search for Google Plus authorship.


You can search for if someone's using your Google Analytics ID.


And you can search for link footprints as well,


if you're trying to do link audits.


There's one sneaky way of using it as well,


which I couldn't help but talk about.


And that's this search.


Because occasionally, putting this in and looking


for your competitors will bring up interesting results.


For example, if they're using microsites


or separate domains or subdomains,


and they're working on looking back to the page


that they want to rank.


Interestingly, when I was doing this,


most of the most interesting results


came from when you put SEO companies into this.


I'm not going to talk about that.


But they're going to have a plan.


It's a pretty cool little thing that they do.


So content creation.


When you're creating content, you


want to make sure you're targeting that content


at the right audience.


Full contacts.


It's a tool that's been mentioned a few times


the last few days.


There's a way you can use full contacts to do audience


research for your content.


Now full contacts allows you to upload


a list of email addresses.


So that could be your customers, a list of Twitter accounts,


maybe the people that follow you, Facebook IDs,


and even phone numbers.


And then it will go off and try and find


associated information based on what you give it.


And it's loads of data points that it tries to pull back.


And it'll make it really easy to use,


because there's a spreadsheet you can go and download that


does all of the hard work for you.


You don't need to know how to code or use APIs.


You just use this spreadsheet.


It's really, really easy to use.


Now there's one data point that it pulls back,


which I want to talk about.


It tries to find someone's job title.


So when your results come back and you've


got a big list of job titles for your customers,


you can take all of those, again,


put them into a word cloud, and get something like this.


So if we're putting together a piece of content,


and this is what the data is showing us,


we can shape that content for these kind of people.


And we can also make sure we promote


that content to the kinds of places


that these guys hang out.


In this case, we might say that LinkedIn


is a good target for promotion of this piece of content,


given what we're seeing in the data.


And when it comes to creating content,


it's really important to verify your idea.


Because the last thing you want to do


is go through the whole process of ideation,


creating the content, and then you put it live,


and nothing happens.


It's painful.


We've all been there.


We know what it feels like.


And it's really tough.


And I want to give away one of the tips we use at Distilled


to try and overcome that and make it less likely.


And that's to get input from not just the people who


work on the project team, not just the creatives,


or the outreach team, or the SEOs.


We look wider within the company.


This is an email that Jess, our head up here in London,


sent to the whole company.


We looked at developing a piece of content


for a client around grammar and people's pet peeves


when it came to grammar.


So what really annoyed them?


And this is a snippet of the email thread that came back.


All in all, there was nearly 100 replies.


And this was great.


Loads of people responded.


Struck a cord with people.


What was even better was the fact


it was sitting back 90 minutes.


It was a pretty, I think it's probably


the most unproductive 90 minutes in Distilled's history.


But it was like this struck a cord with people.


And when we went through and looked at the emails themselves,


people were showing emotion.


They were saying, oh, I hate this.


Or I really can't stand it when people do this.


Which scared me, because my grammar's terrible.


I realize I work with a lot of angry people at Distilled.


But this worked to verify the idea.


It showed that we had something.


It showed that it was worth pushing forward


and worth spending time on.


We all do a competitive analysis.


It's pretty straightforward.


But most of the time, we all do it for our business competitors.


What we should be doing as well is competitive analysis


on our content competitors.


And I want to give you a real example.


We work with a client in the UK who


sells small business insurance.


And we wanted to develop some content that


was basically a small business guide to social media.


If we'd just looked at their direct business competitors


to see if any of them were doing that kind of content,


we wouldn't have found very much, because they weren't.


But when we looked a little bit wider, we found this.


There's no way we'd have put Mashable in the same bucket


as these clients' competitors.


There's no way that that would ever happen.


But the reality is that if we want


to develop this piece of content,


this is who we're competing with.


So we have to do something that is better than this,


or different, or more novel, and make sure


that we've got a chance of doing a better job.


And you can use the keyword difficulty tool on Moz


to do this as well.


Rather than searching for a business word,


like a commercial word like digital cameras,


search for this instead.


See who's ranking.


See what kind of links are going to those pages.


Click through and think, can I do a better job than these guys?


Content calendars.


Sorry, event calendars.


Lexi touched on this on Monday in relation to PR activity.


It's a really cool idea.


So content calendars, sorry, event calendars


are everywhere online.


You just have a quick Google.


You find national holidays, sports events, cultural events,


all sorts of things.


And what this can do is help you define a content calendar.


Because when events are taking place,


there's always content written about them.


It could be a big national event that a magazine or newspaper


writes about, right down to a small local event


that a small blogger or local newspaper writes about.


And we did this for one of our clients.


And this is a piece of content around UK festivals.


If we'd launched this content and tried


to promote it in December, which in the UK


is pretty wet, miserable, probably freezing cold


and snowing, that wouldn't have done as well.


Because no one was writing about festival content


at that time of the year.


So they wouldn't have really cared.


Whereas when we push it out before the summer,


when festival season is starting to get some momentum,


people are writing content about it anyway,


this can really support their existing content


and give them that extra asset to make their content better.


By your best performing content, I


don't mean content that gets the most links,


gets the most social shares, not even the most traffic


in this case.


What I'm talking about is content


that assists with conversions.


This is from Google Analytics, so it's


just a conversions report.


And what you can do here is add a secondary dimension


for landing page URL.


And you can put your content into this filter


so that you only see content that has helped


with assisted conversions.


A lot of content may not draw off direct conversions,


but this tells us when it's played apart somewhere


in the process.


And the result looks something like this.


Sorry, I couldn't share the client URL.


But this particular piece of content


assisted with about 24 conversions.


So from this data, we can say, OK, let's push more traffic


at this page.


Let's do some more outreach, some PR.


Let's do some Twitter ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn,


whatever it is to push more content traffic at this page.


Because we know it's going to help with conversions and not


just traffic, social shares, or links.


Content promotion.


OK, so this is the only tip I'm going to ask you guys not


to tweet, not because it's blackout or manipulative.


Well, it's not that manipulative, to be honest.


Well, no, it's not.


But the reason I'm going to ask you guys not to tweet it


is because the example I'm going to use


is Autographer, and my girlfriend, Ellie,


manages this account.


And if she knew that I was about to tell 1,300 people


to go and steal her hard work, I don't know


if she'd be too pleased.


I think I'm pretty sure by the time I got home,


my clothes would be neatly stacked


outside the front door with suitcases.


And I'd be sleeping on Phil's sofa for three weeks.


I like Phil, but not that much.


But anyway, every Twitter account's got this.


If you go to this dropdown menu and click on Lists,


you'll see a list of lists that that Twitter account has


curated.


See the one at the top?


37 bloggers that have been curated and listed on Twitter.


And they've all clearly got Twitter accounts, obviously.


I can just steal these.


Rather than going and starting from scratch


and trying to find high authority, genuine bloggers,


I can just go and steal someone else's work.


And it's amazing how many Twitter accounts


leave this open.


You can make it private, but a lot of people don't.


I don't think they realize that you can use people like me who


can do this with them.


Right, so Facebook ads.


If you're doing outreach, you've probably


got a list of email addresses.


Obviously, the people you're going to email


to do your content promotion to.


Facebook ads has got a feature called Custom Audiences.


Will mentioned this earlier on.


One way you can define a custom audience


is by uploading a data file.


That data file can include email addresses.


So that list of blogger emails that you've got,


you can upload them to Facebook.


And at the same time that you're about to do outreach,


you can push that content straight


into their Facebook feed to try and hit them


with not just the email, but with some social promotion


as well to try and get that little bit of extra chance


that they're going to notice it and hopefully


start that relationship and start talking to you.


You can also, using Facebook ads,


target people at worker publications.


This was mentioned yesterday where sometimes you


want to push your content to your customers,


but you also want to push your content to influencers


who have got the chance to help you promote it.


So on Facebook, you can target by a bunch of demographics,


one of which is employer.


It allows you to do stuff like this.


This is really broad.


Big publications, lots of different industry areas.


So you can go really broad like this or go really narrow


as well based on your industry or your location.


I was chatting to Zeph the other night, actually.


He had a great suggestion around this,


which was to also target by job title, which you


can put in as journalists.


You can do that as well.


And it gets your content in front of the kinds of people


who can write about it and share it.


Lookalike audiences.


I'm going to quickly explain what they are for those


of you that aren't familiar.


So you can say to Facebook, hey, here's


a list of people in my audience.


And it could be people that have liked your Facebook page.


And what Facebook then does is go through all of those people


and pull out their demographics, their interests, their likes.


And it meshes all of those things together


and looks for more people on Facebook


who share those same characteristics.


And it will put all of those people


into a whole new bucket of people


you can target with your adverts.


I'm going to quickly step through the process.


It's really simple.


Create a Lookalike audience.


And you select the source of the audience, what


you want Facebook to base the new list on.


In this case, I've used a Distilled Facebook page


and gone through the people who liked it.


There's another way you can use this as well in the moment.


Select the US.


You can only select one location at a time right now,


which is a bit annoying, but it's not too bad.


And you can create this audience really easily.


And then when you go to create Facebook ads,


that audience shows up as an option in a drop-down menu.


And you can push adverts straight at this new audience,


but an audience that is very similar to the people you


already got.


Now, there's another way you can use this for content promotion.


Because you know I mentioned that the source in that example


was a Distilled Facebook page?


There's another way you can define the source.


And that's people who have converted.


So you can create a conversion on Facebook


for a view of a page.


Let's say it's a piece of content we've created.


So you can say to Facebook, track.


Every time someone goes to that page,


it's logged into Facebook.


And it will put all of those people into a list.


It looks something like this.


You can see the line flattens first,


jumps up as soon as people start coming through to this page.


And Facebook's recording all of those people.


You can select from this drop-down menu on the right


and say, create a lookalike audience


based on the people that have already visited my content.


It will take all those demographics, those interests,


those likes, and find more people on Facebook


that share those characteristics.


And you can push your content towards them.


It's a great way of pushing your content further


to a bigger audience, but in a very, very, very targeted way.


Because you're using your existing data to do so.


Twitter's got a very similar feature.


I'm not going to go into detail on it,


but it's called Tired Audiences.


It's a very similar thing.


If Twitter's more of your platform,


go and take a look at that.


And it'll probably work for you quite well.


Conversion.


Phil mentioned this yesterday in terms of YouTube.


So he showed you this graph.


And YouTube sits somewhere between brand awareness,


consideration, advocacy.


Content that's not product pages or category pages


tends to sit in a similar kind of place.


The problem is that those people aren't


going to convert straight away.


And that's OK.


It's for the brand awareness for consideration.


And we've actually got a client in the UK


who I showed earlier, the Train Line.


They sell train tickets.


And if I click through to their content


and love that content, engage with it, link to it, share it,


I could do all of those things.


But if I don't need a train ticket at that point in time,


I'm not going to buy one no matter how good that content


is.


But if I put remarketing tags on that content,


they can target me further down the line.


They can build up a nice list of people


who have visited that content, have seen the brands,


have become aware of it, and try and convert them further


down the line.


It's a great way of getting more from your content


and making it more valuable to the business.


Oops, went backwards.


There's a great report in Google Analytics


called Reverse Goal Path Report.


It's really, really good to finding places


in your conversion process where people get distracted.


So it's hidden down here on the left-hand side


under Conversions.


And when you click through to it,


you'll see something like this.


Now, this is one of our clients.


And we could see the steps people were taking


towards conversion.


There's a few URLs here that are a little bit concerning.


There's delivery date.


There's frequently asked questions.


There's terms and conditions.


Now, those are important to customers, right?


They need to see the information on those pages.


But the fact that they're going through the conversion funnel,


then jumping out to a separate page,


isn't that great because you're trusting


them to then come back in.


I don't really want to do that.


I want to keep them in the checkout process


as much as possible and not have them be distracted.


So you can use data like this to say, well, OK,


let's address delivery concerns within the process itself


and try and not make people click to a separate page.


Let's see if we can do a split test and improve conversion


by addressing that concern on the page itself.


You can also use Google surveys to drive conversion rate tests.


And Google surveys are pretty cheap.


And you can ask questions such as this.


And the idea being you find why your customers may not


buy your products or your service.


And you can do free form answers.


People just type the answers.


Or you could do multiple choice.


We did one with a client where it was free form.


And the word cloud that Google gave us back was this.


Pretty black and white what we need to do here.


It's really clear what concerns the customers the most


with buying this particular client service.


So we can use this data to drive conversion rate tests


and see whether we can address fraud concerns and trust


concerns in the checkout process and on the website


to try and increase conversion.


We've got the data telling us that that's what customers


are most concerned about.


Full disclosure, you're going to get some bad data sometimes


if you do free form answers.


Some of these were pretty, these were the ones I could show.


Some of the ones that are in there were pretty bad.


So just that's what happens sometimes.


But most of the data is really, really good


and really, really useful.


It can use it to drive conversion.


Measurement.


If you're doing social campaigns with clients


or your in-house team, you may do competitions.


You may do content promotion.


You could do events.


There's a really cool tool we can use called tweetreach.com


that allows you to track the reach of a hashtag.


It gives you a bunch of stats for free.


There's a paid version as well if you want more.


But this is the free version.


And you go further down this page,


there's all sorts of stats as well around the people that


share that content, sorry, people that share that hashtag,


people that are most active.


And it's all for free.


It's really, really useful for seeing


the reach of your social campaigns


and tracking those hashtags and measuring


the value of your work.


Last one.


Now, I'm guessing a lot of you do link building, do outreach.


If there's one tip you take away from this talk


and you do outreach or link building or PR,


I kind of want it to be this one.


Now, we've all said this kind of thing to clients.


And this isn't bad.


We know that domain authority, 85 and above,


is pretty strong because we understand domain authority.


Four links, yeah, not that many, but they're strong.


We know that.


You can add more context to help people


who don't understand domain authority.


So pretty well-known publications,


pretty well-known websites.


Most people don't understand that they


want their business featured on these kind of websites.


I think I prefer this one.


There's no room for ambiguity when


you can say this to your boss or to your client.


And this is really, really easy to measure.


You set up a custom segment in Google Analytics


and include traffic sources for the websites


that you do outreach to or PR to.


And this is an example from one of our clients, the outreach


team.


Some of them sat over there.


They work in Seattle.


Worked on his campaign.


And it showed us this.


And those guys can say, hey, that orange line right there,


that was us.


That's a direct result of the work that we've done.


And for them, it's a much smarter way


and a much more effective way of measuring their work


of them saying, hey, we got you some links.


No matter how good the domain authority is,


how good the paid rank is or anything like that,


this is way, way better.


And there's all sorts of stats associated with it.


And there's all sorts of stats associated with this as well


that you can show to the client.


There's a bunch of tips there.


There's a quick reminder.


By doing all of these, there's kind of something else


going on there.


We're building a better platform.


We're building better content.


We're building a bigger and more targeted audience.


We're pushing that audience down the right conversion paths.


We're measuring it all a hell of a lot better.


Platform, audience, content, conversion, and measurement.


Those five things form the basis of a framework


we're using at Distilled to help create better integrated


marketing campaigns.


Because they force us to think outside of SEO.


It forces us to think more than just links.


And it's made us go on a bit of a journey


at Distilled over the last couple of years from thinking


of things as link bait, like most of us have at some point,


and thinking, hey, how many links can we get?


That's awesome.


But we've moved now to much more integrated marketing campaigns


using this kind of framework where


we can look at all the different areas


that we can help our clients.


And I've kind of done this as well.


I mean, two years ago, I was giving you guys


a bunch of link building tips.


And yeah, links are always going to be important.


I'm not going to lie about that.


I think that they're always going


to play a part in rankings.


But there's so much more we can do as Will was just


talking about.


And this is something that I've had to learn and come


to realize over the last couple of years.


And I want to leave you guys with a client example of where


we've done this and show that this kind of thing works.


This is a piece of content we did for one of our clients.


Shows the vocal ranges of the world's greatest singers.


And you can see it got some pretty good traction.


But the thing is, no matter how good these numbers individually


are, any one or two of them isn't really


going to work for the client.


It's the combination of them.


It's the combination of all of them


that make a difference to the client.


It means that their customers are seeing people


they follow on Twitter tweet their content and their brand.


It means that the client is being featured really prominently


on publications that audience read.


And not only that, we're all coming through to the website


itself, seeing the brands, and becoming familiar with it.


And they're all the kinds of people


who could become customers of the client.


To top it all off, this only happened, I think,


two weeks ago.


This guy commented on it.


And I mean, we didn't aim for this at the start.


It's not a metric we really think about distill.


I'm not sure if Axl Row is going to comment on it.


It's not really one of our KPIs.


But I'll sit next to our head of creative in London


and the outreach team back there.


I'm guessing that their reaction was something


like this when that happened, as well as the clients.


And the value goes way beyond just the links.


And on that note, thank you.


Thank you, Patty.


We're out of time for questions.


But I bought a book from you last year, an e-book online


on link building.


It's still one of the best link building books


that you can find today.


It's still available, right?


And people can get that where?


linkbuildingbook.com.


It's already on Mac OS 9.


Yeah, OK.


Thank you, Patty Mugen.


Cool.


Cheers, sir.


MozCon 2014 - 03 - Lindsay Wassell - Improve Your SEO by Mastering These Core Principles

Hello, everyone.


Isn't this great?


What an awesome show.


Let's give a round of applause to the AV and to the Moz staff


for putting this on.


Somehow it looks even better this year than last year,


and I have no idea how they're going to top it next year.


So amazing, amazing.


And thank you, Cyrus.


That was a really, really flattering introduction.


Hopefully I can live up to it up here.


He did say I was soft spoken, so I


don't have to be too loud and exuberant, maybe.


So let's talk about SEO.


SEO is big.


I've had the pleasure of working in this industry


since about 2001.


That's when I started playing with things, and I fell in love.


It was a powerful marketing tactic,


and it still is entirely and impressively powerful today.


What I love most about being up here, it's hard.


It's hard to get up on the stage.


There's 1,400 people in this audience.


But what people did for me when I was starting out


in this industry was get up on this stage


and share what they knew.


And that's what I'm hoping to do today,


is give a little bit back and be a part of this community


like so many others are and that I've benefited from.


So I hope you enjoy some of the things I have to say today.


We're really lucky.


We could have been living in the Stone Age.


Marketing probably was pretty lame back then.


They were dealing with stone.


They didn't even write things down.


And then we moved into the Iron Age,


and we had better tools and weapons.


The Industrial Age, things started to get really


interesting here because this is when we tried to produce more


with less manpower.


Interesting things are starting to happen.


Then the digital revolution came along


and introduced us to this bad boy.


And the only reason anyone got rid of these


is not because they broke.


It's because it didn't match your updated trendy decor.


Where we're at today is the Information Age.


And I can't imagine a more exciting time to be alive


and to be working in marketing.


We're an information-based society,


and we're in an industry that we get to share information


and communicate information online,


and people can find answers.


And we get to be a part of that, which is hugely exciting.


What SEO really is is marketing.


When SEO first started out, the people with the most experience


maybe have 18 years experience now in SEO.


When it first started out, people


couldn't decide if it was an IT thing, a technology thing,


a marketing thing.


It is very clearly a marketing tactic in my mind


and a very impressive marketing tactic.


So what I'm going to talk about today is how we market


in an information age using the most powerful tool available,


in my mind, being SEO.


So how do we reach our audience in the information age?


So information is the perfect product.


In the information age, the internet is the perfect medium,


and organic search is the perfect channel.


So how do we win in organic search today?


I'm going to tell you.


So I've come up with these core principles.


I was really coming up with this presentation.


I didn't want to be up here talking


about a whole lot of tactics.


I want to get everybody thinking beyond the latest update


and what's going to happen next, necessarily,


and bring things back to the core principles that really win


in search over and over again.


They won 18 years ago.


They still win today.


And I'm confident that they'll continue


to be the things that really make an impact moving forward


in this industry.


So the core principles that I want to talk to you about today


are innovate, dedicate, educate, and accommodate.


It spells out idea.


I wish my slide was a bit prettier with that.


But you have idea, innovate, dedicate, educate,


and accommodate.


So let's talk about innovation.


I feel strongly that innovation wins the internet.


Back in the Wild West days of SEO


and when things were starting to come online,


you could just put it online.


That was the end of it.


You put it online, and you won.


That's space.


A lot of spam came out because people would put spam segments


online, and then they'd win that space,


and they'd make a lot of money.


That's not how SEO is nowadays.


It's much harder to be a spammer, thank goodness.


And search engines really want to surface valuable content.


Innovation doesn't have to be hard.


Where's Dr. Pete?


This is a picture of Dr. Pete.


He gets a few cameos at every MozCon.


I think mine's the first.


So here's Dr. Pete making corn angels.


This is innovation.


All you have to do is do something a bit better,


a bit different, use slightly different methods,


and you can draw the attention and get the traffic you


need in search.


Dr. Pete also has a really similar picture


of him making snow angels, and it had half as many likes.


This is far more interesting.


All right, so I'm going to give you a tip.


There's a few of these sprinkled without.


The first thing that we all need to do as SEOs


is think like product marketers.


A web page or a digital asset of any kind is a product.


And when we publish drivel and nonsense,


we're just adding a whole lot of noise to the space.


If we really think about everything


we're producing for online channels as a product,


we can get a lot further along.


So I'm going to go back to some marketing principles here.


What is a product?


Sounds pretty simple, but it's a bit more complicated.


So anything offered to a market to satisfy a want or need


is a product.


So Campbell's tomato soup is a product.


Hello Kitty is a product.


So really anything.


Free hugs even are a product.


You don't have to sell something.


You don't have to give somebody something


to take away tangibly.


A product is really any of these things.


All right, so what is innovation?


Innovation is a new method, idea, or product.


So this is when we're applying new ideas, new efficiencies,


better ways of producing something.


This is not the same tomato soup can.


This is Andy Warhol's tomato soup can.


That was innovation.


He didn't make a new soup formula.


He didn't make any product like that at all.


What he did was took something existing


and made it interesting.


He elevated the humble Campbell's soup tomato soup


cans into art.


Moo is an example of an innovator in our space.


Who in the audience has Moo business cards?


How many?


It looks like maybe 20%.


The first time I remember Moo was at a conference


and everyone had those tiny little Moo cards that were


basically their social profiles.


It was a way for people to share that information along


with their business card.


It was almost their personal version.


And that was really neat.


No one else had offered a product like that.


And what they had done is they had innovated


on the printing processes so that they could be efficient.


And they allowed people to put all those neat images


on the back.


They went into a really crowded space.


They were not the first folks online


to produce print materials.


Vista Print was there much before they were.


But what Moo did was they came and they found a way


to innovate, and it got them attention,


and it got them that natural love in search, essentially.


So what is digital product innovation?


Google doesn't have a definition for this one,


so I had to make it up.


What we want to do here is apply a new method or idea


to a digital product.


This is a really simple blog post


I have a picture of here from a website.


I think it's pronounced Fade On.


That would be my best guess.


I've never been to their site before,


but I did a search for Andy Warhol's soup cans.


And they're on the first page with a beautiful result.


And what they did was they didn't create a new product,


really.


And they featured Andy Warhol, who


had put his own layer on top of an existing product


by elevating it into art.


And they discussed how Andy Warhol wished that he had


stopped at Campbell Soup Cans.


They were his favorite work, and he


wished he'd just never proceeded beyond that as an artist.


And what they did was they wrote a short piece that


focused on some information that wasn't published elsewhere.


It was new.


It was a fresh perspective.


Someone else who innovated well was Airbnb.


I just learned that they used to be called Air Bed and Breakfast,


which was interesting.


Literally, it was about air beds and renting out


space in your living room, affordably,


and making an income.


There were others before them.


VRBO.


How many people have used VRBO in the room?


Quite a few.


And how many people have used Airbnb?


Many, many more.


OK.


VRBO has been around a lot longer.


They were founded by a couple who


wanted to rent out their own personal property,


and they were trying to find a way to do that.


And they didn't have a ton of competition in the space.


This screenshot of VRBO, to be fair, is a couple of years old.


They've actually done a lot of work to improve it now faced


with competition like Airbnb.


But what Airbnb did was they went


into a market that had a really strong player,


and they did it differently, and in many ways, better.


That's their way of innovation.


So kickstart tip number two.


Innovate your world.


Innovation does not have to be done


by the CEO of your company or the chief marketing officer.


Innovation can be done in every department, in every role,


particularly when your role relates to producing


digital assets online.


We can all have an impact there, which is amazing.


A few examples of ways to innovate.


So copywriters can bring fresh perspectives,


like the Andy Warhol post I showed earlier.


Database engineers can make it run faster.


Web designers can make it easier to understand.


Information architects can use common language.


There are so many ways to innovate.


So I hope that everyone comes out of this room,


no matter what role you're in, thinking about ways


that you can innovate with the piece


that you touch of the product and work


to make that better, faster, cooler, more engaging.


The internet rewards innovation.


Naturally, you don't need to go out and hunt down links


if you're naturally awesome.


If you've innovated and you've done something really cool,


people naturally want to share it,


and you will survive in search.


This is just a quick screenshot from OpenSight Explorer showing


that Airbnb has a higher domain authority


and some other metrics as compared to VRBO.


Really, VRBO, if they had continued to innovate,


if they'd taken that product and continued to excel and improve


and make it better all along the way,


they could still be dominating that space.


But someone came in fresher with neat new ideas


and has surpassed them.


And to be fair, VRBO is working much harder.


And it benefits all of us.


When I started using VRBO a few years ago,


it was really an accomplishment to actually achieve


a reservation on the system.


I felt like I navigated the most difficult parts of the internet


and made something happen.


It's getting better.


Search engines reward innovation.


So in that fourth spot, the simple article


from a website about Andy Warhol's soup cans shows up.


All they did was write something unique.


That was a copywriter finding a unique angle


and publishing something worthwhile.


That's it.


Innovation wins right up there with MoMA and Wikipedia.


Dedicate.


This is my second core principle that I


want to discuss with you today.


So Google says, focus on the user and all else will follow.


I have a bit of a beef with that.


I don't like user.


If we're talking about people as users,


we're not talking about people.


So what I would prefer to see is something


like focus on your audience and all else will follow.


When I say all else will follow, I


don't mean it's not going to be hard.


I don't mean it's going to magically appear if you just


think about your audience.


What will happen is if you're truly dedicated


to your audience, you'll do what it takes to reach them.


So here's another tip.


Care about your audience, it will show.


It's really hard to fake this.


If you don't care about your audience,


you are in the wrong space.


Find a new venture or get a new job.


Speaking about dedication and Airbnb again,


I just love this story.


Two of the founders, when they were building their business,


couldn't really afford their apartment


and they had been renting out, initially,


their own living room air beds.


And what they did when they were building their business


is they built a new business called


AirBnB.


And what they did was they built a new business called


AirBnB. When they were building their business is they


turned that apartment into office space.


And as they grew to about 15, they were out of room.


But they couldn't really afford to get real office space.


They were still using.


So one of the founders lived through his system


for six months or so in the Airbnb.


So he went, gave up his own bedroom in his own apartment,


and lived through Airbnb, airbed hopping,


so that he could grow his business.


That's dedication.


Moz is a great example.


We're all really familiar with this brand, hopefully.


And if you're here and you don't know


a lot about Moz, Tagfee is a really big deal for Moz.


Even though when I started there, it wasn't defined.


We didn't have Tagfee written out.


There was no code.


But it was always core.


It's how the business started and it's


what the founders believed in.


You know, the Tagfee is the transparent, authentic,


generous, fun, empathetic, and exceptional.


And those things are really true in everything that they do.


And that's why they have so many friends.


We all love Moz, right?


Here's another great example.


I have never eaten at King of Pops.


And as I was doing research for companies


who are really dedicated, these guys, Sean, online,


I don't live in Atlanta even.


But I was able to find them because their digital footprint


was so large.


There are about six or seven food trucks that do frozen pops.


And they really care about it.


They have all these flavors.


They're really excited about their audience


and their customers.


And it shows.


Everything they do is about creating the flavors


their audience wants and reaching them


where they are with their mobile food trucks.


And as a result of that, they show up really well online.


It's natural.


If you're dedicated to your audience


and you've created some sort of innovation, you will show up.


Educate.


Who had one of these?


This is an Apple IIc, I think.


Apple IIc.


A couple people.


1984 was a really important year.


I didn't realize this, but some really crazy things


were happening in 1984.


And this is the computer, the hot computer at the time.


It was about $1,200 back then, $1,300, which is about $3,000,


I believe in today's terms.


It was pretty pricey for a home computer.


There was a really important quote that came out of 1984.


There was a conference, a hackers conference,


the first ever one.


And a man named Stewart Brand said,


information wants to be free.


This applies so well to our space.


We live in the information age, for goodness sake.


Information is our product.


It's a perfect way to reach our audience.


And by sharing it, we win, and so do society


with more information.


It's a picture of the gentleman now.


There was another really exciting quote that came out


of the same conference.


So Steve Wozniak, he's the other Steve Woz,


the founder of Apple.


And in 1984, he was speaking about electronic bulletin


boards and how much information there was out there.


There was too much information.


So he said, there's been too much stuff created.


Society did not have a need for that much


of that kind of information.


He was really exuberant about it.


He looked like this when he said it.


I reached out on G Plus to him to ask


if he wanted to update that quote.


He responded and had some neat things to say,


but he didn't update the quote.


There is a lot of information out there, a lot more


than there was on electronic bulletin boards in 1984.


Google came along a long time later.


Others came before, and they wanted


to organize the world's information.


That's exciting.


This is a picture of last year's MozCon audience.


Really, now we have an important role to play.


As marketers, we're the ones creating information


and putting it online.


And as SEOs, we're tagging this information


and making it available so that people can find it.


We have an important role to play


in this information-based society


in sharing the right pieces with people when they need it.


So here's another tip.


Go bigger with your content and stop publishing drivel.


Please.


There's too much information out there.


There he is again.


Don't do it.


Don't publish drivel.


Steve Wozniak, get some stressed out.


Kickstart tip number five, promote your content


like you mean it.


If you have created some sort of innovation


and you're dedicated to your audience


and you're educating them, promoting it


is easy because you're proud of it.


You're not out there trying to push content out


that you don't believe in.


If the content's great and you still don't believe in it,


you need a different job.


What we really need to do is create things


that we're proud of and things that


are different and original and meaningful.


And then the rest of the marketing funnel


becomes simple and straightforward.


Here's a good example of someone who educates.


So Stumptown Coffee Roasters, they


produce all of this great content about beans


and the different types of beans that go into coffee.


They go and produce videos on location.


They're not big.


This is a small company.


You don't have to be huge to have


an impressive digital footprint online.


So Stumptown Coffee, they produce these great articles,


these great videos, and they're rewarded


online with great rankings and a really nice digital footprint.


The last piece that I would like to talk to you about today


is accommodate.


This is a really important one.


So Google says the need for information


crosses all borders.


I'd like to rewrite this one, too.


The need for information crosses all borders and boundaries.


And what I mean by boundaries, I should go back to that.


What I mean by borders and boundaries


is not physical, necessarily.


It can be.


But if you're really thinking about your audience,


you're accommodating towards them,


and you're making sure that you're


producing works for them.


So do a better job at accommodating your audience,


whoever they are.


We make a lot of excuses.


We address maybe 80% of our audience


and say the rest is just too expensive or too hard.


That's 20% that you're leaving on the table,


and it doesn't have to be incredibly difficult to make


a difference.


But if you're thinking about your audience,


and you're making sure that what you're producing


is able to accommodate your users, your audience.


One neat thing to look up is the principles of universal design.


This is an architectural principle


where physical buildings or structures are created


in a way that allow access to people of all shapes


and sizes and abilities.


This is a great image just up the road in Vancouver.


In Robson Square, there's this set of stairs.


And this shows universal design.


I think it applies really well here.


What you have is stairs, and then you also


have a wheelchair accessible or stroller accessible ramp built


right into the stairs.


When I think about web design, I think


about making search engine friendly experiences,


I try to imagine a system like this.


We're not creating one experience for our audience


over here, and another one for search engines here,


and a mobile one over here.


We need to create one experience that works for everybody.


There are a lot of information access barriers.


This is something that I care about a lot.


As a knowledge-based society, we should all


have the same access to information.


Some of the poorest people in our country


only access the internet from their smartphone.


And if you aren't publishing information


that can be viewed from a smartphone,


then you're leaving out the lower income


earners in our society.


There are also a bunch of other things.


So device, the infrastructure, the audience themselves,


censorship, the freedom.


If you're trying to target inmates,


I'm not sure how they get access online.


That's tricky.


Findability is important here, too.


Accessibility depends on findability.


If your audience cannot find your information,


then it's not accessible.


So on the findability note, robots are people, too.


So we definitely want to include them in our audience.


When Google says focus on the user and all else will follow,


I think people misinterpret that sometimes.


They say, well, oh, Google's saying


not to think about SEO at all.


They don't want us to optimize.


I don't know that that's true.


And even if it is, we can ignore it.


Because findability is key to accessibility.


If we aren't making sure that our content is produced well,


and it's marked up properly, and the robots have access in,


and users of all types have access in,


then we're doing a disservice to our audience.


So findability is key to accessibility.


And if you remember that, anytime you hear Google say,


focus on the user, you can remember this as well.


So kickstart tip number seven, never, ever


forget about the robots.


So how do we plan for that?


There are all kinds of things.


And this is really what I've been


doing for my entire career, is planning for the robots


so that I can reach my audience.


If we innovate, we can succeed online.


As a consulting agency, I get a lot of calls from people


looking to hire an SEO.


Some of them have really exciting ideas.


They're exciting in their mind.


We got a call recently, and the gentleman


wanted to launch a great website that


sold all kinds of products.


And we asked him, what's different?


What are you selling?


What makes your website unique?


What are you bringing new to the table?


And he said, well, it's going to be just like Amazon.


And he was one guy.


And he really thought that he could just


get online if he hired a good SEO and compete with Amazon.


It's a great idea, but maybe, what is it, 19 years too late?


Had another call from somebody who wanted to launch a service


where people in the community could log on,


and they could rate vendors and service


providers in their market.


OK, well, what makes you different?


Do you have competition?


He's like, yeah, I have competition.


Angie's List, because we're going


to be just like Angie's List.


But what are you going to do different?


Well, we're just going to do, I'm just going


to start in my neighborhood.


Does Angie's List have a strong representation


in his neighborhood?


They did.


So he was coming in, again, too late without innovation.


So if we innovate, if we're truly dedicated to our audience


and we're doing the right thing for ourselves


and for the people that we are trying to reach,


if we're willing to educate them and share information


and we can accommodate our audience,


these are the core principles that worked 18 years ago


in Search.


They work today.


They aren't cheats or hacks.


These are the things that will really make a difference


and help a business grow.


So that's what I have for you.


Thank you very much.


Thank you, Lindsay.


So I have a question.


So you're known for your site audits.


You deliver these gigantic 70, 150 page site audits.


People come to you for technical SEO.


They want something a lot of consultants in this room


deal with.


People want technical answers to questions.


They want a quick fix.


When you're an SEO, when you're talking to your boss,


how do you communicate these core principles


on dedicating yourself to the audience when they don't


fit within a technical fit that people are looking for?


It's hard.


I didn't say any of this was easy.


This is a lot more difficult path to get started on.


And if you're an employee at a company who


isn't dedicated to their audience,


usually a business started out being dedicated.


And this is why I love working for the smaller companies,


actually.


This is why the Fortune 500 are kind of difficult.


Because when you're huge, often you've


lost sight of why you started the business


in the first place and what you were there for.


And the employees are constantly moving around


to different departments.


It's easier when you're small.


So as a company scales, you can do everything in your power


to focus on the audience.


I know even Jen here did a lot to build up community at Moz.


Moz always cared about their community,


but she made it her own.


And then she surrounded herself with a team


that then expanded that.


And each of them made it their own.


And they grew that piece.


So you can really own your piece and dedicate to the audience


in whatever way that is.


If you're a developer, you can make it faster.


You don't have to convince your boss.


Just do it.


I really like the idea of starting a site audit


with some core principle section.


Do you ever do that?


Or would you recommend people do that?


Where it comes, that's a great idea.


I'm going to have to take that.


When it comes to auditing, we don't even


take on clients who, like the guy who wanted to launch Amazon.


We coached him for free.


I think my husband Eric fielded that call for a good hour.


This might not be a good idea.


Here's why.


You're not doing something new.


How is this going to work?


We'll coach people through that, and then we'll


send them on their way.


We'll focus on the company who really wants to impact change


and do something interesting online.


I realize that not everyone is in a position


where they can do that.


We're lucky that we get to choose who we work with.


And I think it's really one thing


I talk to a lot of business owners about


is figuring out who your ideal client is.


And we thought about that a lot at Moz


when we were in the consulting business.


And we thought about it a lot at Key Phraseology.


And we know who our ideal client is.


That way we know it when we see it,


or we know when it's not a right fit,


and we move on to one that's better.


It works better for the client.


It works better for us.


One final question, and don't forget if you have a question,


you can appear at any of the microphones.


Tell us how you got Steve Wozniak to respond to you.


I just used G+.


It was very exciting.


That was a really exciting night at my house.


So someone was on Google+.


Yes.


Steve Wozniak's on Google+.


Amazingly.


So I went on there, and I found this awesome video.


It's called, PBS produced it in response to this 1984


conference.


And the video is called Hackers.


What's it called, Hackers?


Wizards of the Digital World, or something like this.


And you can look it up on YouTube, and it's awesome.


This video was interviewing great, great minds


back from that time.


And I referenced the video and clipped right to the spot


that I showed a screenshot of and asked Steve


if he still felt the same way.


I just tagged him, because he was in it.


I tagged Steve Wozniak, and he just responded.


It was fast.


It was amazing.


I really like G+.


I know most of you guys don't.


But you can find me there.


And we have to be there.


That's the thing.


Make sure that you're on G+, because it's a layer.


You've got to get in there.


And maybe Steve Wozniak will respond to you, too.


Lindsay, thank you so much.


Thank you.


How Does Google Handle CSS + Javascript "Hidden" Text? - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat a little bit about hidden text, hidden text of several


kinds.


I really don't mean the spammy black on a black background, white on a white background,


like hidden text type of keyword stuffing from the 90s and early 2000s.


I'm talking about what we do with CSS and JavaScript with overlays and with folders


inside a page, that kind of hidden text.


It's become very popular in modern web design to basically use CSS or to use JavaScript


to load text after a user has taken some action on a page.


Perhaps they've clicked on a separate section of your e-commerce page about your product


to see other information or maybe they've clicked a read more link in an article to


read the rest of the article.


This actually creates problems with Google and with SEO and they're not obvious problems


because when you use something like Google's fetch and render tool or when you look at


Google's cache, Google appears to be able to crawl and parse all of that text, but they're


not treating all of it equally.


Here's an example.


I've got this text about coconut marble furnishings, which is just a ridiculous test phrase that


I'm going to use for this purpose.


But let's say I've got page A, which essentially shows the first paragraph of this text, and


then I have page B, which only shows part of the first sentence and then a read more


link, which is very common in lots of articles.


Many folks do this, by the way, because they want to get engagement data about how many


people actually read the rest of the piece.


Others are using it for serving advertising or they're using it to track something.


Some people are using it just because of the user experience it provides.


Maybe the page is crowded with other types of content.


They want to make sure that if someone wants to display this particular piece or that particular


piece that it's available to them in as convenient a format as possible for design purposes or


what have you.


What's true in these instances is that Google is not going to treat what happens after this


read more link is clicked, which is that the rest of this text would become visible here.


They're not going to treat that with the same weight that they otherwise would.


Let's assume all other things being equal, so they're on similar domains, they have similar


link profiles, all that other kind of stuff.


A is going to outrank B for coconut marble furnishings, even though this is in the title


here.


Because this text is relevant to that keyword and is serving to create greater relevance,


Google is going to weight this one higher.


It's also true that the content that's hidden behind this read more here, whether it's...


It doesn't matter if it's CSS based, JavaScript based, post load or loaded when the HTML is,


it doesn't matter.


It's going to be weighted less by Google.


It will be treated as though that text were not as important.


Interestingly, fascinatingly perhaps, Bing and Yahoo do not appear to discern between


these.


They'll treat these more equally.


Google is the only one who seems to be, at least right now, from some test data, and


I'll talk about that in a sec, who is treating these differently, who's basically weighting


this hidden content less.


What can we discern from this?


What should SEOs do when we're working with our web design teams and with our content


teams around these types of issues?


Well, first off, we have to expect that this is going to...


That any time we hide text with CSS, with JavaScript, what have you, that it will have


less ranking influence.


It's not that it won't be counted at all.


If I were to search for hardwood-like material creates beautiful shine, like that exact phrase


in Google with quotes, both of these pages would come up.


This one almost certainly first, but both of these pages would come up.


Google knows the text is there, but just isn't counting it as highly.


It's like a content that isn't carrying the same weight as it would if it were visible


by default.


Given that we know that, we have to decide in the trade-off situation whether it's worth


it to lose the ranking value and the potential visitors in exchange for whatever we're gaining


by having this element.


Second, we've got to consider, I think, some creative alternatives.


It is possible to make text visible by default and to instead have something like an overlay


element.


We could have a brief overlay here that's easily closable with a message.


Maybe that could give us the same types of engagement statistics because 95 percent of


people are going to close that before they scroll down, or they're going to receive a


popover message, or those kinds of things.


Granted, as we've discussed previously on MyPort Friday, overlays have their own issues


that we need to be aware of, but these are possible.


We can also measure scroll depth by doing some JavaScript tracking.


There's lots of software that does that by default and plenty of GitHub repositories


that are open source that we could use to track that.


There might be other ways to get the same goals.


If it is the case that you have to use the read more or any other text hiding elements,


I would urge you to go ahead and place the crucial information, including the keyword


phrases and the most related terms and phrases that you know are going to be very important


to rankings, up in that most visible top portion of the page so that you maximize the ranking


weight of the most important pieces rather than losing those below or behind whatever


sorts of post-loading situation you've got.


Make those the default visible portions of text.


I do want to give special thanks.


One of the reasons that we know this, certainly Google has mentioned it on occasion, but over


the course of the last few years, there's been a lot of skepticism, especially from


folks in the web design community who've sort of said, look, it seems like Google can see


this.


It doesn't seem to be a problem.


When I search in quotes for this text, Google's bringing it back.


That has been correct.


But thanks to Shai, I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name, Aharoni from Reboot Online, rebootonline.com,


and I'll link to the specific tests that they perform.


But they performed some wonderful large-scale, long-term tests of CSS, of text area, of visible


text, and of JavaScript hiding across many domains over a long period and basically proved


to us that what Google says is in fact true, that they are treating this text behind here


with less weight.


So we really appreciate the efforts of folks like that who go through intense effort to


give us the truth about how Google works.


With that said, we will hopefully see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard


Friday.


How Can Small Businesses/Websites Compete with Big Players in SEO? - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat about how you, as a small site, could compete against big


sites.


Now, look, big sites in SEO have some big advantages.


Those include things like domain authority, the quantity and diversity of the links that


are coming to them, which bias engines to generally rank their content higher than they


ordinarily might if it were on a brand new site or a smaller site that they didn't recognize.


They have trustworthiness.


They've built brand associations in the space through advertising and through their size


and scale and their reputation over time and over years.


That means that people have these biases towards trusting that brand, liking that brand, buying


from that brand.


They have financial resources that likely you are not going to have as a small website.


If we're talking about Expedia here versus ranstravels.com, they have tens if not hundreds


of millions of dollars that they can put towards their web marketing efforts and their SEO


efforts.


I have, well, my bad self.


They have the ability to invest if and usually not just if, but if and when something is


a major priority.


If it's not the case that something is a major priority, then Expedia is probably not going


to invest in that.


This is where a lot of your advantages come from.


As a small website, you can be much more nimble.


You can choose to say, here's all the things we could be investing in right now.


You know what?


This is the highest priority right now.


A week later, decide this is no longer the highest priority.


We're going to change direction and go pursue this instead.


You don't have to check with a manager or a team or a boss.


You don't have three layers of management that you have to run that approval process


through.


You can be extremely nimble.


Small teams can get remarkable amounts done in small amounts of time compared to much


larger teams.


You can also be much more creative.


You are allowed to go outside the boundaries of what's been set.


If you have an idea, you can execute on it.


If you have an idea at Expedia, you need to get a lot of approval before you can go after


it and you better make sure that all of the rest of your work is done too.


You get to focus.


As a small business, you can choose to focus your web marketing efforts on one specific


thing.


If you know that SEO is where all of your opportunity lies, you can ignore your other


web marketing channels.


You can ignore retargeting for a few weeks.


You can ignore your PPC accounts for a few weeks and simply focus on SEO.


At Expedia, a marketing manager is going to have a long list of things that they need


to do that they're responsible for, and they can't simply ignore all their duties to focus


on something new.


You can have niche appeal.


Yes, Expedia built up their brand around travel, and they have associations around hotels and


flights and bookings and all this kind of stuff.


You can choose to take a small slice of those for your particular business and say, we're


going to focus exclusively on this, and we're going to become the authority in this particular


niche, which gives you a bunch of advantages that we'll talk about.


Finally, you have authenticity on your side.


A big brand will often have big brand associations.


A smaller brand can build very strong positive associations with, granted, a smaller audience,


but you don't need to monetize as many or as fast or as directly as a big brand needs


to.


You can concentrate on building your brand's appeal to your very specific niche, and if


you monetize them well enough over time, you can build a great business, a small business,


but a great small business.


Five ways to compete.


First off, let's talk about keywords.


In the SEO keyword universe, there are going to be keywords that a big brand like, in this


example, Expedia, is unwilling, unable, or has chosen not to target yet because they


have an indirect path to ROI or legal issues or PR issues.


Those can be things like long tail keywords.


Maybe Expedia is definitely targeting something like Istanbul City Guide, but they are definitely


not targeting something like best shops to visit in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar.


By the way, I looked that up and I could not find a great list, so if someone wants to


make a list of those, that'd be real handy because they're Grand Bazaar.


Very hard to find things.


Comparison keywords.


Expedia can't go after their competitors' brand names, and they certainly wouldn't choose


generally to compare themselves to another brand.


Veneri flights versus Expedia flights, they're just not going to have a page on that, but


you can have a page on that and you can compare those things to each other, and that's an


advantage that a small website is going to have over a larger one.


Editorial keywords.


Expedia has business relationships with a lot of different hotels.


Therefore, it is not in their interest to rank hotels in a particular locale from one


to ten or from one to a hundred.


As a small website, you don't have that constraint and you can go after those types of keywords


that your bigger competitors bias against doing, and that can be very powerful as well.


Second, you get to aim for that authority and brand association in a very specific niche.


Like we talked about, Expedia is focused on travel, but Rand's Travels can focus on city-specific


itineraries or ranking travel destinations or some other thin slice of a niche that Expedia


can't build that same brand equity in.


Number three, you can pursue indirect and harder to monetize content.


Expedia knows that they're generally pursuing not just keywords, but content that helps


people buy directly from Expedia, and they're going to be looking at that path to conversion.


You might say, I don't care if it takes three visits or four visits or five visits for someone


to convert.


I want to build trust.


I want to build authority in my niche.


Therefore, I can go after content that Expedia would not go after.


They might be hotels, flights, cars, cities.


You might be recommended websites and travel education and news and tactics and tips and


neighborhoods.


Four, you can go deeper and provide more value with your content.


You can invest more in a single piece of content than Expedia or a big brand ever could.


When you take your small niche and you say this keyword or this set of keywords is extremely


important to me, this search intent is extremely important, I'm going to create 10x content.


I'm going to put 10 times more effort and energy and resources into building that than


what my big brand competitor can do.


If they are a two-star resource, I'm going to be a five-star resource.


Number five, in addition to that element of building better content, you can also build


better, more direct relationships with the people you need those relationships with.


Expedia goes through their PR team and they have their teams of folks that do their relationships,


but you can go direct.


You can say, I'm Rans Travels.


I'm going to go meet with people in Istanbul while I'm there and forge those relationships


personally and build those relationships up on social media and have conversations and


leave blog comments.


That will reinforce my authenticity and my niche appeal.


That's a huge advantage as well and that can help to amplify the reach of your content


and to get you visibility on these keywords and this content that your competitors simply


can't touch because they're too big.


They need to do this stuff at scale.


When you need to do things at scale, you simply can't focus in the same way and that's where


your big advantages come from as a small website.


Now, looking forward to our comments and hearing more from you about how you've been able to


compete against the big guys and we'll see you again next week for another edition of


Whiteboard Friday.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

Hi everybody, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

I'm Dr. Pete, the Marketing Scientist for Moz, and I want to talk to you today about


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

title rewrites.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

The new version, Google made a bunch of changes in the last six, seven months, and the short


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

answer is we don't like them.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

But as with many things with Google, us not liking them doesn't really change much.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

So I want to talk today a bit about what we've seen in the last six months, some new data


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

that we collected, and if things are different or the same, and some of the scenarios where


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

maybe they don't seem that egregious, but Google is rewriting, and that we might want


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

to avoid, and that we might not expect to be a problem.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

And I'm going to go through three of those scenarios.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

So first of all, we did a re-up on our data from last August, and last August we found


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

that about 58% of the titles we measured across a set of 10,000 keywords were being rewritten.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

I'm going to define that in a minute.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

This time around we found that number is down to 57%.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

Hurray, a whole percent.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

Recently Cyrus Shepard, who used to be with us at Moz, found a very similar number.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

Google quotes a very different number, and so I want to talk to you a little bit about


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

how we're defining things and how we're going to change that up a little bit on the Moz


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

side.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

So our 57% includes a lot of stuff, and it includes, first of all, this blue section


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

of the pie, this bluish green, I use too many blue greens here, which I call truncation.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

And that really is when the title is too long and Google has to cut it off.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

This has been around forever in some form, and what can you do?


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

The box right now is 600-ish pixels long, you run out of space, you're out of space,


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

not really Google's fault.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

They did change things up a little bit six or seven months ago, and now instead of just


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

that cutting off and the dot dot dot at the end, they might take a piece from the middle,


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

they might take a complete segment from the middle and not even put the dot dot dot.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

But I'm going to call all of that truncation because they are using your title tag and


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

it's just too long.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

So I've pulled that out.


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

I've also pulled out what I call addition, and in this case, that's where Google appends


Title Rewrites: 3 Patterns to Avoid

either your brand name or sometimes a location.


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And so they're using your title or a segment of your title, sometimes they truncate and


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add, which is a little confusing, and then adding some additional information they think


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is useful.


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Again, I don't think it's really fair to call that a rewrite.


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So when we pull those out, we're seeing about 30% of the titles in this data set being rewritten


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on high volume competitive keywords.


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If you read what Google says, they're calling a rewrite a situation where they take text


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from somewhere else on the page, say an H1 or some body text, and they're using that


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instead of the title tag.


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So they're not counting modifications.


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So we just have to be aware that their definition and ours are a bit different, and there is


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a lot of gray area.


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I don't want to talk today about kind of the obvious rewrites where I think Google is doing


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a good job if every single page on your website is called the website, and Google rewrites


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that.


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I think that's probably fine.


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That's good for users, right?


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And it's probably good for you and for your click through rate and your engagement.


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If you take your entire laundry list of keywords and CSV dump them and put them in your title


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tag, and Google rewrites that, I'm going to side with Google on that one too.


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Sorry, but that's not great.


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So I think there are situations where Google is doing a decent job.


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I think it is going to get better over time.


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But I want to talk about three scenarios that might surprise you a little bit and that I


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want you to be careful of.


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So I'm going to use this fictional business, Bob's Boba.


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I'm a Boba T fan.


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The red for the delimiters is intentional.


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One of the things we're finding is that Google is getting a little aggressive about commas


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and pipes and dashes and using them to break things up or seeing them as ways to just separate


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keywords.


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So we have to be a little cautious.


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I think they're overdoing that right now and may tone it down.


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They've toned it down a little bit, but not quite enough.