Many of the ones that they link to in the newsletter do well.


Better alternatives to Expert Content style content - Whiteboard Friday

You can do this with visuals, you can do it with data, you could do it with revenue numbers,


you could do it with tools, you could do it with products, whatever it is.


I would suggest thinking a little more broadly than, dear Fishkin, I round up, you right.


I think that there's a lot more opportunity outside of the pure expert round up space


and I hope you'll share your creative ideas with us and the successes you've seen.


We look forward to seeing you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


How to Optimize for Competitors' Branded Keywords - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat about optimizing for your competitors' branded terms and phrases,


the keywords that are your competitors' product names or service names.


This gets into a little bit of a dicey area.


I think it's challenging for a lot of SEO folks to do this and do it well.


And so I'm going to take you through an approach that I've seen a lot of folks use with some


success.


So to start off with, let's go to the strategy level.


Is it actually the case, and sometimes it's not, sometimes it is not the case that branded


keywords are driving high enough volume to actually be worth targeting.


And this is tough and frustrating, but basically one of the best things that I can recommend


in this case is to say, hey, if we are, I'm going to pretend for the purposes of this


Whiteboard Friday that we're all working together on the SEO campaigns for a Wunderlist, which


is a to-do app in the Google Play and iPhone app stores bought by Microsoft I think a little


while ago.


Beautiful app, looks really nice.


And one of their big competitors obviously is Evernote, certainly.


And so essentially, indirect competitor, but still, essentially what you might want to


do here is actually go ahead and use AdWords to bid on some of these keywords and get a


sense for how much traffic is really being driven.


Can you draw any of that traffic away?


And are people willing to consider alternatives?


If there's almost no willingness to consider alternatives, you can't draw clicks here,


you're not getting any conversions, and it is the case that the volume is relatively


low.


Not a lot of people are actually searching for Evernote, which is not the case.


There are tons of people searching for Evernote, and I'd probably tell Wunderlist they should


go ahead.


Evernote's actually bidding on Wunderlist's terms, so turnabout is fair play.


Bidding on AdWords can answer both of these questions, and that can help then get us to,


all right, now what is it that we need to solve?


What are potential customers doing to compare our products or our services against these


folks, and what are they interested in when they're searching for these branded names?


What makes them choose one versus another product?


Related searches can help us here, so too can normal forms of keyword research.


Related searches is one form, but certainly I'd urge you to use Search Suggest, I'd urge


you to check out Google's AdWords keyword tool.


If you like keywordtool.io, or if you like Hublin, or whatever it is that you think is


a great keyword tool, check those out, go through those sources for your competitors'


keywords, see what's coming up there, see what actually has some real volume.


Obviously, your AdWords campaign where you bid on their branded terms can help tell you


that too.


And then from there, I'd go through the search results, right, and I'd see what are people


saying, what are the editorial reviews, for example, CNET did this Wunderlist review,


what does their breakdown look like, what are people saying in forums, what are they


saying on social media, what are they saying when they talk about this?


And you can ask the same questions of your competition that you do here of yourself,


right?


So, if you're saying, here's what Wunderlist versus Evernote looks like, great, now let


me plug in Evernote, see what everyone's saying about them.


By the way, you don't just have to use online research, you can go primary source on this


stuff too, ask your customers or your audience directly through surveys you can use, we've


used here at Moz Survey Monkey's audience, Google Custom Audience Surveys, and we've


used Survey Monkey Audiences product, we like both of those.


Once you've got this down and you say, hey, you know what, we've got a strategic approach,


we know what we need to talk about in terms of content, we know the keywords we're targeting,


great, now you get to choose between two big options here, self-hosting some content that's


targeting these terms or using third-party hosting.


So with self-hosted content, we're going to go try and go after those right terms and


phrases.


This is where I've seen some people get lost, they essentially go too high or too low in


the funnel and not targeting that sweet spot right in the middle.


So essentially, if someone's searching for Evernote review, the intent there is that


they're trying to evaluate whether Evernote is good.


And that, yeah, you know what, that's right in the middle, that's right in the sweet spot,


I would say that is a good choice for you targeting your competitors' keywords, anything


around reviews.


Evernote download, however, that's really at the bottom of the funnel, right?


They're trying to install at that point.


I don't think I'd tell you to go after those keywords.


I don't think I'd bid on them, and I don't think I'd create content based on that.


And Evernote download, that's a very transactional direct kind of search.


I'd cross that one off my list.


How to use Evernote?


Well, okay, that's post-installation probably, or maybe it's pre-installation, but it's really


about learning, it's about retaining and keeping people.


I'd probably put that in the no bucket as well most of the time.


Evernote alternative, obviously.


Obviously I'm targeting Evernote alternative.


That is a great search phrase.


That's essentially asking me for my product, right?


What is Evernote?


Well, okay, that's very top of funnel.


Maybe I think about targeting some content like, what do apps like Evernote, Todoist,


and Wonderlist do?


Okay, yeah, maybe I'm capturing all three of those in there.


So I'd put this as a maybe.


Maybe I'd go after that.


Just be careful, because if you go after the wrong keywords here, a lot of your efforts


can fail just because you're doing poor keyword targeting.


Second is you need to craft that content that's going to deliver a superior user experience.


You're essentially trying to pull someone away from the other search results and say,


yeah, you know, it was worth it to scroll down.


It was worth it to click and to do the research and to check out the review or check out the


alternative.


And therefore, you need something that has a lot of editorial integrity.


You need that editorial integrity.


You can't just be a, everything about them is bad, everything about us is great, check


out why we kicked their butt six ways from Sunday.


It's just not going to be well perceived.


You need to be credible to that audience.


And to do that, I think what's smart is to do it to make your approach the way you would


approach it as if you were a third-party reviewer.


In fact, it can even pay, in some cases, to get an external party to do the comparison


review and write the content for you, and then you're just doing the formatting.


That way it becomes very fair, like, hey, we at Wunderlist thought our product compared


very well to Evernote.


So we hired an outside expert in the space who's worked with a bunch of these programs


to review it, and here's his review.


Here are his thoughts on the subject.


Awesome.


Right now you've created some additional credibility in there.


You're hosting it on your site.


It's clearly promoting you, but it has some of that integrity.


And I would do things like, I think about key differentiators.


I think about user and editorial review comparisons.


So if you can go to both app stores, go to the app stores and then collect all the user


reviews or collect a bunch of user reviews and synchronize those for folks to compare,


check out the editorial reviews.


CNET has reviewed both of these.


The Verge has reviewed both of these.


A bunch of other sites have reviewed both of them.


Let's do a comparison of the editorial reviews and the ratings that these products got.


Choose X if you need.


This is where you essentially say, if you're doing this, well guess what?


We don't do it very well.


We'd suggest you use Evernote instead.


But if you're doing this, you know what?


Wunderlist is generally perceived to be better, and here's why.


That's a great way to do it.


And then you might want to have that full feature comparison breakdown.


Remember that with Google's keyword targeting and with their algorithms today, they're looking


for a lot of that deep content, and you can often rank better if you include a lot more


of those terms and phrases about what's inside the products.


Third, you want to choose a hosted location that does not compromise your existing funnel.


This is rarely done, but sometimes folks will put it on their main home page of their website


or in their navigation, and that's probably not ideal.


You probably want to keep it one step away from the primary navigation flow around your


site.


You could conceivably host it in your blog.


You could make it something where you say, hey, do you want to see comparisons or do


you want to see product reviews?


And then we're going to link to it from that page.


But I wouldn't put it in the primary funnel.


Third party hosted content is another option, and I've seen some folks do this particularly


well recently.


Guest content is one way to do that.


You could do that.


You could pay someone else, that professional reviewer, and say, hey, we want to pitch this


professional reviewer comparing our product against someone else's to these other outlets.


Sometimes there are external reviewers who if you just ask them, if you just say, hey,


we have a new product or we have a competing product, we think it compares favorably, would


you do a review?


And a lot of the time if you're in the right kind of space, people will just say, yeah,


you know what, I'll put that on my schedule because I think that can send me some good


traffic and then we'll let you know.


And you just knock on wood and hope you get a favorable review there.


You could contribute it to a discussion forum.


Just be open and honest and transparent about who you are and what you're doing there.


And you can also do, today you can do sponsored content or what's called native ad content


where essentially you're paying another site to host it.


Usually there's a bunch of disclosure requirements around that, but it can work and sometimes


that content can even rank well and earn links and all that kind of stuff.


For promotion and amplification of this content, it's a little trickier than it is with your


average kind of content because it's so adversarial in nature.


The first people I would always talk to are your rabid loyal fans.


If you know you've got a community of people who are absolutely super passionate about


this, you can say, hey, guess what, we released our comparison or we released this extra review


comparison of our product versus our competitors today, you can check it out here.


You can pitch that to influencers and pundits in your space, definitely letting them know,


hey, here's this comparison.


Tell us if you think we were honest.


Tell us if you think this is accurate.


Tell us if this reflects your experience.


Do the same thing with industry press.


Your social audiences are certainly folks that you could talk to.


One of the key ones that I think gets too often ignored is if you have users who you


know have gone through your signup flow or have used your product but then left, this


is a great chance to try and earn their business back, to say, hey, we know that in the past


you gave Wunderlist a try.


You left for one reason or another.


We want you to see how favorably we compare to our next biggest competitor in the space.


That can be a great way to bring those people back to the site.


Last thing, very important, make sure when you're creating this type of content that


you talk to your legal professional.


It is the case that sometimes using terms and phrases, trademarked words, branded words


has some legal implications.


I am not a legal professional.


You can't ask me that question, but you can definitely ask your lawyer or your legal team


and they can advise you what you can and cannot do.


All right, everyone.


I hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday and we will see you again next week.


Visualizing Speed Metrics to Improve SEO, UX, & Revenue - Whiteboard Friday

I'm Sam Marsden and I work as an SEO at a web calling platform called DeepCrawl.


Today we're going to be talking about how Google understands speed and also how we can


visualize some of the performance metrics that they provide to benefit things like SEO


to improve user experience and to ultimately generate more revenue from your site.


So let's start by taking a look at how Google actually understands speed.


So we all know that a faster site generally results in a better user experience, but Google


haven't actually directly been incorporating that into their algorithms until recently.


So it wasn't until the mobile speed update back in July that Google really started looking


at speed.


It's likely only a secondary ranking signal now because relevance is always going to be


much more important than how the page actually loads, how quickly the page loads.


But the interesting thing with this update was that Google have actually confirmed some


of the details about how they understand speed.


So we know that it's a mix of lab and field data.


So they're bringing in lab data from Lighthouse from the Chrome DevTools and mixing that with


data from anonymized Chrome users.


So this is available in the Chrome User Experience Report, otherwise known as CRUX.


This is a publicly available database and it includes five different metrics.


So you've got first paint, which is when anything loads on the page.


You've then got first content full paint, which is when some text or an image loads.


And then you've got DOM content loaded, which is, as the name suggests, once the DOM is


loaded.


You've also got onload, which is when any additional scripts have loaded.


So that's kind of like the full page load.


And the fifth and final metric is first input delay.


And that's the time between when a user interacts with your site to when the server actually


responds to that.


So these are the metrics that make up the CRUX database.


And you can actually access this CRUX data in a number of different ways.


So the first and easiest way is to go to PageSpeed Insights.


Now you just plug in whatever page you're interested in and it's going to return some


of the CRUX metrics along with Lighthouse and a bunch of recommendations about how you


can actually improve the performance of your site.


So that's really useful, but it just kind of provides a snapshot rather than it's not


really good for ongoing monitoring as such.


So another way that you can access CRUX data is through the CRUX dashboard.


And this provides all of the five different metrics from the CRUX database.


And what it does is looks at the percentage of page loads, splitting them out into slow,


average and fast loads.


And this also trends it from month to month.


So you can see how you're tracking whether you're getting better or worse over time.


So that's really good.


But the problem with this is you can't actually manipulate the visualization of that data


all that much.


So to do that and get the most out of the CRUX database, you need to query the raw data.


Because it's a freely available database, you can query the database by creating a SQL


query and then putting this into BigQuery and running it against the CRUX database.


You can then export this into Google Sheets and then that can be pulled into Data Studio.


And you can create all of these amazing graphs to visualize how speed is performing, the


performance of your site over time.


So it might sound like a bit of a complicated process, but there are a load of great guides


out there.


So we've got Paul Calvano who has a number of video tutorials for getting started with


this process.


There's also Rick Viscomi who's got a CRUX cookbook and what this is is a number of templated


SQL queries where you just need to plug in the domains that you're interested in and


then you can put this straight into BigQuery.


And also if you wanted to automate this process, rather than exporting it into Google Sheets,


you could pull this into Google Cloud Storage and also update the SQL query.


So this pulls in on a monthly basis.


So that's where you're going to want to get to with that.


So once you've got to this stage and you're able to visualize the data, what should you


actually do with it?


Well, we've got a few different use cases here.


So the first is you can get buy-in from management, from clients, whoever you report into for


various optimization work.


So if you can show that you're flagging behind competitors, for example, that might be a


good basis for getting some optimization initiatives rolling.


So you can also use the revenue impact calculator which is a really simple kind of Google tool


which allows you to put in some various details about your site and then it shows you how


much more money you could be making if your site was X percent faster.


So once you've got the buy-in, you can use the Crux visualizations to inform developers.


And what you want to do here is show exactly the areas that your site is falling down.


So where are these problem areas?


And so it might be, for example, that first Contentful Paint is suffering and you can


go to developers and say, hey, look, we need to fix this.


And if they come back and say, well, our independent tests show that the site is performing fine,


you can point to the fact that it's from real users.


This is how people are actually experiencing your site.


Thirdly and finally, once you've got these optimization initiatives going, you can communicate


the impact that they're actually having on performance and also business metrics.


So you could trend these various performance metrics from month to month and then overlay


various business metrics.


So you might want to look at conversion rates, you might want to look at bounce rates, et


cetera, and showing those side by side so that you can see whether they're improving


as the performance of the site is improving as well.


So these are a load of different ways that you can visualize the Crux database.


And it's really worthwhile because if you have a faster site, then it's going to result


in better user experience.


It's going to result in better customer loyalty because if you're providing your users with


a great experience, then they're actually more likely to come back to you rather than


going to one of your competitors.


There's also a growing SEO benefit.


So we don't know how Google is going to change their algorithms going forward, but I wouldn't


be surprised if speed is coming in more and more as a ranking signal.


This is how Google understands page speed, some ways that you can visualize the data


from the Crux database, and some of the reasons why you'd want to do that.


So I hope that's been helpful.


It's been a pleasure doing this.


MozCon 2014 - 08 - Lexi Mills - Top 10 Successful PR Tactics and Strategies

So I've always been incredibly passionate about integrating PR and SEO, even before


link building became as big as it was.


I've been helping PRs and SEOs work together on a strategic business level for quite a


while, but I also work on a tactical level creating campaigns to build links and get


coverage.


Behind me you can see a selection of places where I've placed content and built links


from over the last year.


And today I'm going to talk to you about some of the tactics and strategies that I've used


to help replace these.


Now I know it sounds kind of crazy, but you don't need media relationships to get coverage


or links.


It really helps, but it's not everything.


But building better media relationships will significantly increase the impact of your


content marketing, because it will change the way you structure your content.


It will change the way you package your content, and it will change the way you deliver your


content.


Now I could give you a whole load of tactics we use in PR and make you more PR, but really,


do you want to be just PR, or do you want to be better than PR?


Exactly.


And if you want to be better, we actually have to rewind a bit and take a second look


at Panda.


Now you'll have your own preconceptions about what Panda meant, but for me Panda was really


different.


I was working in an SEO firm at the time, and I get a call from our Seattle office at


some god-awful hour, I think it was about 2 a.m., saying that Panda's going to roll


out in the UK.


So we pulled together a statement, and I started calling media.


And I called, and I called, and I called.


Nobody cared.


Nobody cared at all.


They said, SEO isn't relevant to my business, it isn't relevant to my publication, or my


readers, and it's not relevant to me as a journalist.


Are you sure?


Are you really sure?


Anyway, perseverance, as with all PR, wins.


And I eventually found somebody at Sky News who, let's be honest, was bored enough to


cover the story.


In a perfect world, I'd like to believe that he really got it, but look at his headline,


why Google Panda is good for businesses.


Really?


Was it, initially?


But then this happened.


All these other big publications, IT Pro Portal, PocketLint, they all got hit.


And it was brilliant.


And it was absolutely fantastic because it fundamentally changed the way that publishers


saw SEO.


It changed the nature of their jobs, and it changed their perception of SEO, but SEOs


themselves.


We were no longer this kind of dirty word stuck in the back corner of a building or


an office.


We were superheroes.


We were there to save the day.


And this really had quite a big impact on my relationships with media.


I used to meet with them and say, hey, I've got this cool client, this amazing content.


But actually, now we started to talk about what the fabric of their business was made


up of.


And it was made up of traffic, because traffic bought advertisers, and traffic was their


customers.


So suddenly, they saw SEO in a very different light.


And so when we started talking more about the fundamental aspects of their business,


I started to devise all my strategies to take this into account.


It was the foundation for everything I do.


So if you focus your strategies on helping the media overcome their challenges, you will


be significantly better.


In fact, we'll be 10 steps ahead of every seasoned PR out there.


And that's where you should be aiming for, not to be as good as PRs at outreach and content,


but to be better.


So what are these challenges?


Clearly Google is a big issue for them.


They understand less about it.


And at this point in time, they're really struggling with not provided.


They're losing advertisers to Facebook, because it can be more easily attributed.


And they don't know what's most popular on their content.


They don't know how to devise the content strategies based on what content is performing


best.


So if you're pitching a publication, look at their social channels.


Look at what is really doing well for them.


And when you call them, say, hey, I realize that this is doing really good on your social


channels and has done historically.


It will be one of the strongest pitches you put forward, because that's how their peers


see them and that's how they're judged.


And Google authorship.


Now, even though the photos don't show up in SERPs anymore, a lot of publishers and


journalists are actually negotiating their salaries based on the strength of their Google


Plus profiles.


You should look at these, because that is where you're going to hit their pockets.


If you create content that they can put on those channels and share, you're going to


create a good relationship.


Furthermore, the publications themselves are equally going to be looking for Google Plus


links to enhance their profiles.


So if you can't get a link to your client's website, get one to their Google Plus profile.


And it's really simple.


Put their website into top pages.


Have a look.


Plus, of course, the home page, category pages, and have a look at what type of content is


performing best.


Then repackage your pitch to fit that.


And show them.


They love to see it.


Now, when I used to pitch Huffington Post, I would talk to them about things like, I've


got a great story that suits your audience.


Now, when I call up Stephen Hull, he's editor for the news at Huffington Post UK, I just


say, hey, Stephen, I've got a story that will allow you to target this key term.


And you know, the last time I called him, he didn't even ask what the story was.


He just said, send it.


Not all journalists are here yet.


Not all editors are here yet.


But they're fast getting there.


If you can spend time with your contacts and nurture this, no PR is going to be doing this.


We did this with a client called SwiftKey.


They have this awesome app.


It essentially learns how you speak, how you type.


So you can predict whole sentences.


And I knew that over the Queen's Jubilee that loads of tech publications were going to be


missing out on search volume for the term Jubilee.


Because it kind of doesn't fit with TechCrunch or Pocketlin all that well.


So SwiftKey and I pulled in all the Queen speeches.


So you could essentially text like the Queen over the Jubilee.


And this meant that they could target that search term.


And it got coverage everywhere, even in lifestyle.


And that was fantastic because it was a two-way benefit.


Short and sweet.


Articles that are written on long form do not work for a lot of publishers.


Make them short.


Make them 400 words.


If your article can't be written in 400 words, split it into a series and pitch that instead.


Now it's not just Google that's an issue.


There are thousands of redundancies being made everywhere in all the different media


sectors.


And this is causing strain on internal teams.


And it's also causing a growth in mass amounts of freelancers.


And this is awesome.


This is really, really good news.


Because you can contract them to do work.


And they'll do it better than anybody you're going to train up from just out of school.


Because they understand the business of media.


So get them to write the forwards to your white papers.


If you don't have someone you can write a press release, get a journalist to do it.


I work for a PR firm.


I'm a PR.


And I still get journalists now and again to write a press release or to look over it.


Because it builds the relationship.


And they want that content to do well.


Because they want that work.


So it's in their interest to call a few buddies and sell it in for you as well.


It's easily done.


All you have to do is look on Press Gazette.


And it's got all the sectors of media.


And you can target sport, pharmaceuticals, health, fashion, and find top journalists


in that area.


But please, please make sure they've written in that sector recently.


A journalist's career naturally meanders over time.


And they may say that they've worked in sport.


But when you actually ask them, it might be three, four years since they did so.


So just double check that.


Now managing media movement in current day is really tough.


A few years ago, I could just get my little black book out and write you a press list.


That's really not possible in current day.


Like my little black book, these people are jumping left, right, and center.


I can't cross out the names and publications and move them over fast enough.


So you need a good media management system.


Now BuzzStream is awesome.


I'm sure there's loads you could use.


This is what we use in-house.


So if you've got a team of more than two, you need to be doing this.


But furthermore, some of the best coverage our company has got this year has been site


searching.


Take the site.


Take your key term associated with your story and find who's written about it most recently.


Because the best media tracking is only as good as the last time you spoke to that journalist.


Journalists also have a lot less time.


You know, the beauty of journalism used to be being able to find the perfect case study,


get the perfect quote, get the beautiful images and craft this piece of content for the world.


That doesn't happen anymore.


They don't have the time for it.


If you want your content to be the piece that's chosen, you've got to create content assets


that orbit your campaign.


If you do this, you will reduce the risk of failure and increase impact significantly


because you make it easier and quicker for journalists to write those articles.


Ideally, you want these hosted on your Web site because it will build links.


But Dropbox is great, too.


Lots of journalists prefer it.


And you've got to meet them halfway.


One of the things I always put in my Dropbox is a Q&A relating to the content piece I've


made.


Whether it's a Q&A about how it was built, about why it was built, about the key subject


matter, get that written up.


And this is really good to write in advance if you've got nervous clients or people you


take forever to sign stuff off because it can be written in advance, it can be signed


off and in that Dropbox.


Equally, quotes.


Get yourself a list of quotes that different media can use.


I always write these myself and send them over to the client because if you write them,


send them over, even if they completely shred it and put it back together because they want


to say something else, they will shred it and put it back together quicker than if you


didn't send it to them at all.


And case studies.


You know, news isn't the only coverage you can get.


Case studies form like a massive part of all publishing, no matter what sector you're targeting.


And these are easy to get.


Email your customers' clients if you can.


Otherwise, you go on Response Source, which is like a paid-for Harrow or Harrow itself,


or even Twitter.


You'll be surprised.


People will help you.


Get one of these written up.


Get some photos and get that in your press pack as well.


And image galleries.


This is where I think people miss out all the time.


But you know, so many websites have those little boxes that you can scroll through of


pictures and there's like a little bit of text, little bit of text.


Those are fantastic ways to get coverage for a project that maybe didn't make it into news,


you couldn't get a Q&A about or you didn't have a case study for.


We did this with Zombie.


This is my best friend's tortoise.


And we created an image gallery for a story.


We eventually we were looking at web analytics and we found out my greeting cards client


actually had a lot of people sending Valentine's to and from their pets, which I kind of thought


was a little weird.


That being said, we just took a whole load of photos of really cute pets and unusual


ones, hence Zombie, and that's what got us the coverage.


That piece there would not have happened if the journalists had had to go and look for


those images because they just don't have time for that.


I've given you some tips behind as well about ways you can structure your images to be more


impactful and media ready.


Now Halo or gaming PR is actually one of the best areas you can analyze.


If you want to set your bar somewhere, set it at gaming PR because it's one of the toughest


areas for media to work in.


And that's very largely because they're starting to compete with corporate blogs, which is


really tough.


You know, they're getting announcements made on the corporate blog and they've got to find


a way to repackage it on their website for their audience.


So you know, they'll do that with commentary or analysis, but you know how I just said


put everything in the drop box?


Well, there's one thing you shouldn't.


Keep a little bit back, whether it's a few images, a screen shot, a quote or two, because


if you're working with clients that are announcing everything on their site, you've got to give


journalists something else.


And I promise you they will cover you quicker if you can offer them something unique that


they can offer their readers too.


Now the globalization of media is bad for journalists because there's less jobs.


It's really good for us because what's happening is CNET is actually a good example.


CNET UK and CNET USA a couple of months ago merged.


They're one publication.


So if I call CNET UK or UK journalists and they don't want to cover my story, that's


just fine.


I'll wait until 1 o'clock London time and then I'll just call New York.


And you know what?


If New York don't want it, I'll call San Francisco.


It's not a problem.


I'll just keep going.


And this is where you guys should be thinking now.


It's not about localized outreach.


Their publications are seeing themselves as global, so your outreach should be as well.


And vacations.


Vacations are hard to take when you've got a big workload and when you've got fewer staff.


And journalists really struggle with this.


But again, this is our opportunity.


What you can do is pitch them a whole load of content before Christmas or any key holiday


and they'll just store it up.


They'll just line it up ready to go.


I mean, I don't know if you've done much link building over December, but it's probably


one of the most dire times to do link building.


Nobody is there.


No one answers your email, but you've still got to keep plugging away.


Do it all by the 1st of November and then you can sit back and you can go on vacation.


National holidays, you want to pitch one to two weeks before.


They'll be grateful.


And you'll be grateful.


So all these tips are great, right?


You've got great outreach tips, but then you're like, well, actually, I need some really good


stories.


Look at Lego.


You want inspiration?


Lego win time and time again.


Just look at the search results for them for news.


It's just story after story.


They are awesome at it.


Whether they're doing spoofs about old films and targeting cult fans, whether they're launching


their first female scientist range, they're fantastic and they get loads of coverage.


And this is in part because they get those bits right.


They get the images right, and they get a third-party voice in their stories.


And this is really critical.


You don't just want your client being quoted.


Here they've got a psychologist being quoted.


It's not that hard to find a psychologist.


You go into Google, you go into news, you type psychologist, and you see who's being


quoted.


You already know they're not frightened to speak to media, and they're likely to speak


to you.


And a third voice will change how much coverage you get.


And Lego do news jacking like nobody else does news jacking.


This is Glastonbury, which we just had in London.


Now it's all well and good to say, okay, fine, you've got Glastonbury, and they can do this


quickly.


You can do this quickly.


Just don't try and write a press release.


Write what looks exactly like a press release and call it a media alert.


It's amazing.


It doesn't need high-level sign-off.


And it's exactly the same thing.


You can move fast.


And most events you can plan for.


This is a royal baby bath that we made for the birth of King George.


And so Prince George, sorry.


We put up a product page.


We got it on backorder.


We got a blog post up about it with an interview with a midwife.


And then we got loads of links to it and coverage from all the media because it was topical.


Product spoofs are fine.


But if you hook them to a topical event, they'll be even more impactful.


And what was even cooler, I knew that there were loads of journalists sitting outside


the hospital waiting for Kate to have this baby.


And they were bored stiff.


So I just thought, you know what?


Get me a bathrooms.com delivery guy.


Got him down.


Got a big ribbon wrapped around the bath.


And I just said, you just walk up and down in front of all that press.


Just keep doing it.


Keep doing it.


And we got them on TV.


We got loads more coverage because we had a physical object.


And this is a key factor.


Offline influences online.


We wouldn't have been able to do this otherwise.


And the cost of this?


Biggest cost was the red ribbon.


Because I used the client's internal budget to buy the bath.


Didn't hit my budget.


Red ribbon is really expensive.


It was almost $400.


I'm not complaining.


It wasn't that expensive overall as a project.


But $400 for a red ribbon is unbelievable.


Now, I don't like failure.


It demotivates my team.


It demotivates my clients.


It breaks trust.


So I wanted to create a project where I could have figures that would grow over time, but


I could actually be hammering the same story out over and over again.


So again, this was around the royal birth.


I thought people are going to be cyber squatting when the King George's name, when it gets


announced.


So I thought great.


I'm going to write a press release ahead of time, get those figures.


And I went out and I PR'd it.


About, I don't know, about three in ten people said yes and published it.


Well, the next day the figures were bigger.


So I changed the number and called all those other people back and said, you know how you


said it wasn't big enough or important enough?


Well, now they're double.


Oh, you're still not interested?


Okay, end of the week I'll ring you again.


Same story, different numbers, over and over again.


And we ended up getting international coverage, one release.


We just changed the numbers.


We do the same with Kickstarter at my firm.


We go out and we say this Kickstarter project is launching.


Then we go out and say this QuickStarter project has reached its target.


Then we say it's doubled its target.


It's the same release, the same story, but you're just building the drama.


And of course we do all the other stuff.


We do the Q&As.


We do the good images.


And then we get them in front of important people.


If they're going to go meet David Cameron and Prince Harry, well, I'm going to tell


the journalist that didn't cover it on my first four releases about that and he might


want to cover it then.


The results?


Well, they speak for themselves.


And actually, just as a side note, if you want to build up a website ready for sales,


Kickstarter is awesome.


Most of our clients go from having a website that didn't exist to a DA of like 50 in like


a couple of weeks.


Just saying, you may not need the money.


You might need the SEO.


Color themes are interesting.


So we noticed that the Wizard of Oz, which I really like, by the way, had two color themes


last year.


It had emerald and it had gold.


And then the Great Gatsby came out and that had a whole load of gold as well.


So when HTC came to us and said, get us loads of coverage, we made a gold HTC.


Seems sensible.


But we wanted to reduce the risk of failure.


So I thought, let's break the strategy up.


Let's cut it into pieces.


So we did a private view and we launched it there.


And then we got on the phone and we sold it in.


And then we did a media tour, which meant going to all the publications' offices.


And I thought, well, that's kind of boring.


Unless I get the biggest, baddest bodyguard in the world to come with me, that sounds


kind of cool.


But what's a big, bad bodyguard without a bomb-proof case?


Right?


So you sit down, you apologize for the bodyguard and say it's just a big project, you know,


it's highly pricey.


And, oh, excuse the bomb-proof case.


And they reach in.


They reach in to get the phone.


You're like, no, don't do it.


You've got to put the white gloves on, man.


Media loved it.


You're creating this excitement, this theater around it.


And you're only on launch three.


So then we took it to the MOBO Awards.


And we thought, you know what, we'll tell people that we're taking it to the MOBOs.


And then when somebody wins and they get the gold phone, we'll tell the media about it


then.


What I've skimmed over is how hard it is to make a solid gold phone.


Just so you know, it's really, really difficult.


And then two people won.


Should have been kind of pleased.


It was a pretty tough day.


But then we didn't stop there.


I mean, why would you stop there?


So it rolled out across all the O2 stores in the UK.


So then you can go to marketing media and talk about it again.


Launch five.


Well, this is Times Square.


We rolled it out in Times Square and it worked there.


So then we just decided, well, we'll roll it out globally.


That's another 40, 50 launches.


Coverage?


Clearly.


Global.


One story.


Breaking up the strategy.


If one had failed, we had another six to go, another seven, another eight.


But the ultimate impact of this, it showed HTC that actually maybe they should reconsider


their product strategy.


Color is that important.


You can now buy.


Gold look HTCs.


If you want to buy a solid gold one, $4,500.


Maybe not the biggest figure for media, but don't worry about it.


You want to call an insurance firm and say that you want to value something at a million


dollars, it's not that difficult to get someone to do it for you.


It gives you a nice big number for media.


I put all my tips on the summary slide for you.


But if you're going to remember three things, make the media's job easier.


Pick your ideas that can grow over time because it will reduce your risk.


And set up partnerships like we did with Mobos or O2 for the HTC phone because you're leveraging


somebody else's reputation and you're getting that joint impact.


If people aren't interested in you, they'll be interested in that brand.


Thank you very much.


Well, I'm a little intimidated.


That's like a master class in PR.


What impresses me so much is that it reminds me of that Don Draper madman quote.


I didn't realize how much creativity was involved in what you do.


And the Don Draper quote, if you don't like the conversation, change the conversation.


And it seems like in your PR strategies here, you're not just telling a story, you're creating


the story.


Would you say that's accurate?


Yeah, I think creating the story is really key.


You can at least control it then.


Yeah, and it seems like you're making the story even more interesting.


Now, I'm going to be a complete noob here because this is all very new to me.


Relationships in PR, those first few contacts when you're talking to editors, when you're


talking to reporters, what is important to remember about those first few contacts so


you start the relationship off on a good foot?


I like to stalk them quite a lot beforehand.


I always check their online first because there's no point in emailing them if they're


not going to be online.


Because then you get disheartened because they don't answer.


Make it really quick and easy, like really short.


I'm coming past your offices, I've got a really great story, I'd love to introduce myself,


can I bring you a coffee, do you like croissants?


Something quite small and quick.


And you talked about persistence.


Is there a danger of going too far?


Yeah, there is and it does happen.


But my experience is that most people don't go far enough.


On-Page SEO in 2016: The 8 Principles for Success - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat about on-page SEO, keyword targeting, but beyond keyword


targeting into all the realms of the things that we need to optimize on an individual


URL in order to have the best chance of success in the search engines in 2016.


And so what is that involved?


Well, look, we could spend a tremendous amount of time on any one of these, but I'm going


to share eight principles that are kind of behind all of the tactical work that you would


put into optimizing that page for that keyword term, phrase, or set of phrases.


And most likely in 2016 it is a set of phrases that you're targeting rather than just a single


keyword term.


Okay, let's start with number one.


What we are trying to do is fulfill the searcher's goal and satisfy their intent.


So there's an intent behind every search query.


I'm seeking some information, I'm seeking to accomplish a task.


Oftentimes that initial intent is different from the final goal that someone might have.


I'll give you an example.


When someone searches for types of wedding formal wear, we might infer from that query


that right now their specific intent behind this search is they want to see different


kinds of potential formal wear that they could wear to a wedding maybe as a guest or as a


bride or a groom.


But their ultimate goal is probably going to be to decide on one of those specific things


and then potentially purchase that item or take something from their wardrobe and add


it in there.


So this means that we need to try and serve both intents.


It's actually going to be really tough if we're an e-commerce player to say, hey, you


know what, I want to rank for types of wedding formal wear and I want to rank for it with


a page that tells people to buy this particular tuxedo.


That's tough for a bunch of reasons.


You don't know whether that formal wear is going to be necessarily black tie in the United


States which is tuxedo.


You don't know whether that person is a male or a female when they're performing the search.


A woman, well, they might buy a tuxedo but probably not, at least statistically speaking.


They're probably not going to.


They're probably going to buy a dress.


You might have much more success with a piece of content like 20 suits and tuxes, men look


great in at a wedding.


Especially if I'm targeting men or if this is types of men's wedding formal wear, that's


probably going to be a piece of content that has a great chance of serving the searcher's


intent and fulfilling their goals, especially if we then take that content and link off


to the places where you can buy or accessorize all those different pieces.


So we're trying to do both of these items in number one.


Number two, speed, speed, and more speed.


This is very simplistic but the idea is really easy here.


We know that user satisfaction is a signal that Google interprets in some ways directly


and in many, many ways indirectly.


We also know that abandonment rates are very high, even higher on mobile for longer loading


pages.


We know that pages that have fast load times earn more links and amplification.


We know that pages that earn more links earn more engagement on them.


We know that all of these things, including speed itself, is positively correlated with


rankings and we know that Google has made page load speed a small, albeit small, but


a ranking signal inside their algorithm directly.


So critically important.


Related to number two is number three, which is creating trust and engagement through UI,


UX, and branding.


Speed is certainly a big part of the user experience.


This is also critical because these two both touch on being mobile friendly, having that


multi-device friendliness so that it's capable on any device.


UI, UX, and branding though go into some different areas.


So if I have my website, I'm really looking for a few different aspects of it from the


SEO point of view.


This is frustrating because it touches on a lot of things that historically have been


outside the control of search engine optimization professionals.


Thankfully, as SEO becomes more multidisciplinary inside a marketing team, hopefully we have


more ability to influence these things.


Stuff like, have people actually heard of your domain?


Do they know you, like you, and trust you?


Do you have UI and visual elements that make them perceive you as being trustworthy, even


if this is the first time they've ever heard of you?


And that can be things like the images on the page, it can be the navigation, it can


be the color scheme, it can be the UI library that you might be using, or how you've done


the visual layout of things.


All of those pieces go into that, do you look trustworthy?


And that's certainly a consideration that a lot of folks have when they're looking at


searches.


Are you intuitive to access?


And I mean intuitive both from a navigation standpoint and from the consumption of the


content on the page as well.


And hopefully you have some external validation signals to indicate that the content you have


and the brand that you are is trustworthy.


Those can be things like testimonials, they can also mean things like references or citations


for the data or information that you're providing or links out, all that kind of stuff.


All right, number four, you want to avoid elements that distract searchers or dissuade


them from visiting you, either this time or in the future.


And the most common ones of these that we like to talk about a lot are ones that interfere


with the content consumption experience, that's things like overlays.


Do you want to stay married?


If so, download our guide.


And then you have to say, yes, of course I want to stay married or no, I'm a terrible


person and I will not click on your pop-up.


And then another pop-up will come up.


Those types of overlays obviously have negative impacts and you can see them in your user


and usage data, your engagement data, and you can determine how much of a sacrifice


you're willing to make in exchange for, well, we did get some email addresses out of this


or we got some conversion rate and so we're willing to make that sacrifice versus, no,


we're not willing to make these sacrifices.


You have to choose what types of engagement dissuading apparatuses you're willing to put


on your site.


But be aware, pogo sticking is a ranking signal.


It's something that they judge indirectly for sure and directly potentially as well.


Pogo sticking meaning a searcher clicked on your listing in the results, they went to


your site, and then they clicked the back button and chose someone else from the results.


And Google interprets that, Bing interprets that very poorly for you.


All right, number five, keyword targeting.


Keyword targeting, classic, classic on-page ranking signal, still true today.


I know that many of us still see or are starting to see a lot more entrance into the search


results that don't do very particular keyword targeting.


At least don't do it the way we've historically perceived it, where it's very keyword driven.


But it's still incredibly smart to do this if and when you can.


You just need to balance it out with all these other aspects.


Places that I would start.


In fact, this is basically in order of importance.


Title element, I would place the keyword term or phrase, the most important term or phrase


that you're targeting in the title element in the headline of the page.


That can be the H1 tag, but it doesn't need to be.


It could be just the bold big headline at the top.


That should match the page title generally speaking or be very close.


Because what you don't want is you don't want a searcher who clicked on one title element


and then landed on a page that had a different headline and they perceived that mismatch


and so they clicked the back button.


That's dangerous.


You want it obviously in the page content.


If you can, when you can control it, you want it in external anchor links to the page.


So if for example, I have my home page about weddings and I am interviewed for something,


I might put in my bio something about the wedding styles website that I own and control


and I would link back to that in that external anchor text.


I want it potentially in the alt attribute of any images or photos or visuals that I've


got on the page.


I want it in the URL, again if I can control it and the URL is less important, right?


So this is we're going in decreasing order of importance here.


I want it in the image name, especially if I'm trying to rank in Google image search,


image name, the file name of the actual image, does matter and is important.


And finally, I want it in internal links to the degree that it's intelligent and balanced


and doesn't look spammy.


Do all these items, you've got your keyword targeting down, but this is not like the past


where just nailing keyword targeting is going to take my rankings to where they need to


be.


I've got to do all these other seven things too, including number six, related topics


targeting.


So related topics is basically this concept that Google has a huge graph of lexical combinations


and semantic analysis.


And they can essentially say, hey, when we see wedding formal wear, we often also see


these terms and phrases, terms like tuxedo, tux, wedding dress, bow tie, vest.


In the United Kingdom, almost certainly you would see waistcoat, which is what we call


a vest here in the United States, or a wedding suit, right, which is what is traditionally


worn in weddings in the UK versus a tuxedo here in the United States.


Now, given that Google sees these terms and phrases very commonly associated with this


one, they've essentially started to build up this graph between these.


And so these topics, they would say, are very important to this search term.


If someone's looking for wedding formal wear, it's unusual for them to find a page that


has high relevance for users that doesn't also include these types of words and phrases.


Therefore, as a search marketer, right, as a content creator, we need to think about


what are those terms and phrases that are related here, and how do I make sure to include


them in my content?


If I don't, my ranking opportunity may decrease compared to my competitors who've intelligently


used those terms and phrases.


Okay.


Number seven, snippet optimization.


With a page, we're not just trying to drive the ranking, we're also trying to drive the


click, right?


So ranking number four and earning a 6% click-through rate, that might not be great, especially


if the average is more like 11%, right?


Then we're earning half the average for our ranking position.


That seems a little funny.


Those percentages are not precise, but you get the idea.


We want to have the best optimized snippet that we possibly can in the search.


So you can see here I've got this, you know, what to wear to a formal wedding, a guide


from ransfashion.com, and it's mobile-friendly, and it's published on May 10th, 2016, and


then it has this nice meta description, the snippet there.


This is essentially my advertisement to searchers saying, please click on my link.


I want your click.


All right.


A bunch of elements that go into this.


The title, obviously, the meta description, the URL format, right?


This ransfashion.com, very simple on home pages, gets much more complex when we have


pages that are internal because Google starts to assign categories.


If you have messy URL parameters or inconsistent categories, tagging systems, that can get


nasty.


Publication date matters quite a bit, especially for searches that have a fresh component.


So if people are searching for, you know, types of wedding formal wear, well, you might


not need to worry too much, but what if lots of people who search for this search for types


of wedding formal wear 2016?


Well, now you really need that fresh publication date.


In fact, if Google sees lots of people search for that, they might actually take it as an


intense signal that types of wedding formal wear alone deserves that date in there and


that they should be ranking fresher content higher up because lots of people are looking


for more recent modern stuff.


Use of schema.


Whenever there's an opportunity, you know, for example, if you're in the recipes space,


there's schema markup specifically for recipes.


If you're in the news space, there's opportunities for news.


If you do video, Google doesn't really obey it very much except with YouTube, but there


are video opportunities for schema markup.


And there's all sorts of other kinds depending on what you're in, certainly local and maps


and a bunch of other ones.


Domain name, that is something to consider.


And in fact, when you're registering a domain name and building out a site, you should be


thinking about how people want to click on it, the brand ability, the snippet optimization,


all that.


Content format.


Content format's particularly important because Google has started, especially when there's


a more question-based search query, they've started showing those longer meta descriptions.


And so if you can encapsulate what you know is essentially the critical piece of content


that answers the user's question, chances are you might be able to get that larger space,


vertical space in the SERP, and that might mean that you can draw more clicks in as well.


This works really well with lists.


It works nicely with forums and discussions, threads.


It works nicely with elements where you have a bunch of specific how-to, step-by-step process,


those types of things.


Same story with instant answer possibilities, that you want to appear at the top of that


Google SERP with an instant answer if you can.


We know that that actually doesn't take away click-through rate.


It actually drives more of it.


In fact, the real estate there means that you often get more clicks than organic position


one, which is pretty great.


And, of course, all the different kinds of SERP feature opportunities, like we talked


about images, maps, local, news, what have you.


Okay, last one, number eight, unique value and amplification.


This is kind of the final piece of things that we're thinking about as we do on-page


optimization in 2016.


And that is, I need to be thinking about what bar do I need to reach in order to have a


chance to rank, rank well, and rank consistently.


This is tough, right?


If the difficulty of ranking is very easy, the bar that I need to cross is probably somewhere


between classic, good, unique content, like this content is good, it's unique, and it


exists.


That's all it needs.


That's a very, very low bar.


Targeting for easy rankings, I would not suggest making that your bar.


I'd put it somewhere between there and twice as good as anyone else in the competition.


But essentially targeting the same types of things, right?


You're doing the same kind of content, you just feel like you're better than anything


else in the top 10.


That might be a reasonable enough bar for an easy ranking.


If it gets moderate, if it gets tough, I need to go up to uniquely valuable.


Uniquely valuable by that, we had a whole Whiteboard Friday on it, which we can refer


to.


But uniquely valuable being this idea that I provide a value that no one else in the


search results provides.


So it's not simply that I'm doing a better job, I'm also doing a unique job of providing


information or data or visuals, whatever it is, that is more and different value than


anybody else.


And then finally, what we've called 10x content.


If you have an insane difficulty of ranking, that might be the minimum bar that you need


to hit.


We'll link over to the 10x video as well.


Basically the questions that I'm asking when I'm talking about providing unique value and


being worthy of amplification, which is something that our content needs to consider too, is


what makes this better than what already ranks?


Do you have a great answer to that question?


If you don't, you should probably get one before you try targeting those keywords and


producing that content.


Why will this be difficult or impossible for others to replicate?


What's the barrier to entry that your content provides that all the other content providers


can't just look and go, oh, well, I see that Rand's done a very nice job ranking there.


I'll just take that and do it.


That should be easy.


You need a barrier to entry.


What value does this page provide that no other page in the SERPs provides?


And that goes to our unique value question.


And the last one, who.


Who will help amplify this piece of content and why?


If you don't have a great answer to who and why, it's going to be incredibly difficult


to get that amplification.


If you can't get the amplification, it's going to be really, really hard to rank because


as much as on-page optimization does matter, and all of these eight principles matter for


makings, SEO in 2016 is not merely about on-page but about off-page as well, just as it's been


the last decade, 15 years.


And so as we're creating content, we need to think about that amplification process


too.


All right, everyone, look forward to your thoughts, and we'll see you again next week


for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Intro to Python [Part 2] — Whiteboard Friday

Hi Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


I'm your host Brittany Muller.


I was previously Moz's senior SEO scientist and now I am freelance consulting and building


some data science programs on the side.


And this is my very special co-host Pumpkin.


You might remember her from the first Python episode.


She's gotten quite a bit bigger.


Quarantine was really good to her.


She's very healthy and very sweet.


I love her so, so much.


This is my best buddy right here.


So we have been hard at work preparing Python 2.0 for you all and we're so excited to show


you what we put together.


So let's just get started.


We kind of went over this in the first Python video but just to recap, in the first video


I got to hold her in one hand.


It's a bit harder now.


That's actually why I'm wearing this.


I thought maybe I could maybe Baby Bjorn you.


Oh, she's fine.


Just to recap, why Python?


It's talked about so much in the SEO community.


Why is this sort of the program that most people prefer?


So there's very simple syntax.


It's sort of more common sense than other programming languages.


It also uses a ton of white space.


So you're going to see tabs and sort of white spaces instead of curly brackets like some


other common programming languages.


Did you have something to say?


It's very concise.


Again there's fewer lines of code to do one thing than there might be in another language


which is very, very nice.


It's also very versatile.


It works on many different platforms and it can work in a different variety of ways as


far as procedural.


You probably heard of object-oriented and functional programming.


It kind of covers the gamut in that way which is really great.


You think so too?


Pumpkin says she thinks so too and it's awesome.


So let's get started.


So whether you're on a Mac or a Windows you can open up a terminal and Python should come


with your Mac OS system.


There's 2.7 kind of natively installed and we can just use that or go ahead and just


open a Colab notebook.


So this is a Google property we'll link to down below and you can create a new code cell


and all I want you to do is simply type in print parentheses or sorry what are these


help me what are parentheses and then quotes sorry we're quarantined you know it's just


been us too.


So print hello world and then shift enter and congratulations you've just ran Python.


So we're off to the races.


You're all Python experts basically and now let's kind of cover some of the fundamentals.


These are really important especially just to be aware of as you kind of continue exploring


oh my mic sorry as you continue exploring Python.


So we're first just going to go over some of the basic syntax and there's obviously


a lot more than just this but some of the common things variables are super super important


in Python.


So this is where you just assign values to words or whatever variables you're working


with.


This is sort of a silly tax price example here where we assign a numerical value to


tax and we do the same for price.


Pumpkin is showing you she's very excited about this example and you simply run this


within excuse me within Python and you will get your price plus the tax that we've stated


here.


So it's kind of a cool application just to quickly get a feel of how variables work and


how when you're dealing with numerical variables you can do a variety of calculations right


so that's a super powerful thing within Python and really fun to play around with.


The second big big important syntax is comments.


So if you have something to say like pumpkin here you have to put kind of a hash and then


write your comment after that and commonly people will use these to explain the code


that's after the comment right.


So you can kind of explain what you were trying to do there.


It's also very useful if you want to comment out code.


So I use this all the time when I'm kind of fumbling and trying to do different things


within a Colab notebook and it's not working I will just comment out different things and


try different ways and oftentimes that helps me kind of find solutions quickly.


The next and perhaps the most powerful thing especially if you want to start using Python


for data analysis so let's say you want to start pulling in Google search console data


or Google Analytics so so important to be aware of the different data types.


So if you're pulling in text like keywords from search console it should be picked up


in Python as string str and sometimes this gets screwed up when you import data and so


it's really important to have the proper data types assigned to your different types


of data so that you can perform correct calculations.


So for you know numeric values you have integer or just int float and complex.


If your numbers aren't in these data types you won't be able to run different calculations


on them.


So again just to be aware that these exist and really the gist of it is you basically


just want your data to be reflected reflective of the proper Python data types.


So sequence is listed as those three lists tuple range mapping is really common if you're


using dictionary type things within different programs and then of course our you know most


common Boolean which is true or false is just B O O L.


So is pumpkin a big happy girl true.


She's actually a boy.


That's a long story but you can call her whatever.


Excuse us.


She's having so much fun and she's so happy to be here.


And lastly the if else statement.


So there's a number of different statements that you can use but arguably one of the more


common is if else.


So just a really silly example.


Let's say you have website A ranking 13 for a keyword and website B ranking 28 you can


say print A if A is less than B else print B. Right.


So this is just a really silly quick example to kind of show you how you can use this.


But once you get into that you get into you know Elif and loops and it gets really really


fun and exciting.


So hopefully you start to play around with some of these and stay tuned for when we apply


this to Google Search Console data.


So thank you so much for kind of checking out this Python 2.0 basics.


My co-host is hiding behind my back right now but she is really grateful that you all


came to check out the second video of Python.


So thank you guys so much and pump and I will see you guys soon.


Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember- Presented by Casie Gillette

All right.


I'm so happy to be back on this stage, you guys.


I was here last year.


I talked about content because I love content.


I talked about how I'm passionate about it.


I also talked about how as content marketers, we need to grow up.


I talked about how we need to be held accountable and we need to measure our content.


We have to go beyond just creating content for the sake of creating content.


I'm super psyched to say that a year later, I think we solved all our problems.


Okay.


No, we didn't.


Of course, we didn't do that.


That would be crazy.


We wouldn't be here.


We wouldn't have jobs.


Here's how I can prove that.


We're still creating way too much content.


I have been using this stat for several years now and it used to be like two million blog


posts a day and now it's four.


That's good news.


We're still not measuring our content.


Forty-seven percent of A2B marketers don't measure the ROI from their content marketing.


Yikes.


This one really hurts my heart because we're not talking to our customers about what matters


to them.


But that's okay, right?


It's okay because progress takes time.


We know it doesn't happen overnight.


I tell myself that all the time.


We are seeing things like this.


There's a light at the end of the tunnel.


We're seeing that people are prioritizing quality over quantity.


Great.


We're seeing this.


This makes me so happy.


This is something that I talked a little bit about last year is we're creating content


for all stages of the funnel.


It's not just about bringing people in through search or it's not just about making that


sale.


It's about taking them through the funnel.


It's about keeping them as customers, giving your customers a reason to stay with you,


to help them.


That's good news.


The thing is we can always be better.


It's why we're here.


It's why we're here at MozCon.


Whether you're a content marketer who wants to try something new or an SEO who relies


on content to be successful, there's so many different things we can do.


This year, I thought instead of lecturing you all on content and how to grow up, I thought


we'd kick it back.


We talk about what we did as kids.


We read.


I was laughing yesterday when Ross came up here and he showed that scholastic book paragraph.


I was like, heck yeah.


That was so exciting and the crowd was pumped about it because we read.


We read stories.


We read where the wild things are and the Velveteen Rabbit and Cinderella.


These stories with characters that stuck with us, that resonated with us.


What I want is us to think about that.


I'm not challenging you to go write an amazing story, but what I am challenging you is to


use your content to connect with your audience, to connect people to your brand, and to make


them remember you.


How do we use this concept we learned as kids?


To connect with people, to make them like us.


People are already doing this.


52% of marketers are already using storytelling in their content.


That's cool.


Here's the thing.


I think a lot of us think, oh, Nike or Apple, yeah, they make these cool stories and they're


this big brand with these big budgets, but that's not just the case.


There's smaller brands doing that as well.


Who here has heard of Wegmans?


Yeah, right?


Wegmans is a grocery store in upstate New York, from Rochester, New York, where I'm


based out of.


If you ever meet anyone who's been to a Wegmans, they are psyched about it.


Someone just shouted out of the crowd about a grocery store.


If you think I'm kidding, check this out.


Two years ago, there was a grocery store opening in New Jersey.


The mayor had to tell people, don't camp out.


How much could you love apples that you wanted to wait out in a parking lot to get into a


grocery store?


But that's the thing, right?


People love Wegmans because they've built this brand that people connect with, and they


do a lot of it through their content marketing.


I adore their content marketing.


Check out their Instagram.


It's not just food.


It's not just produce.


It's not just the people who work there.


It's recipes and it's ideas, and it's things that are actually helpful.


Their emails, it's not sales.


It's not coupons.


It's not the things you might expect from a grocery store.


What it is is recipes, and it's things about how to make my life easier.


My life is someone who doesn't have time to cook.


They give me these things.


They also have a print magazine, which I think is awesome because it's like, yeah, print,


still doing it.


But it's sent out with each season, and it focuses on recipes, but also the farmers that


they use, and it tells the stories behind where they source their products.


It's really cool.


They're building this stuff that connects people to them, and it makes me feel like


they care about me because that's the key, right?


What do people actually care about?


Themselves.


We care about ourselves.


We care about being seen, and we care about people solving our problems.


We care about feeling important, and that becomes our jobs as content marketers.


It becomes our job to create things that do just that, to create something they care about


that reflects their interests, that connects them to us, and we can do that by these four


things.


We've got to identify their needs, think simple, get creative, and tell a story, and that's


what we're going to talk about today.


So to start, and this really shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone, we have to understand


who our audience is and what they want.


We do that all the time as marketers, right?


That's our goal.


We have to understand our audience.


There's a whole level of psychology and marketing that we use every day, whether we realize


it or not.


To do that, we need to find out who they are, what they care about, and what problems they


have.


We have the data.


We have the tools.


Who is our audience?


Does anyone here actually ever look at Google Analytics demographics?


Yeah, no.


None of us do, right?


Because it's kind of sucky, but if we're simply looking to understand who our audience is,


where they are, and who they are, and their age, and some of the things they're interested


in, doesn't it make sense to look at it?


To find out who the people who are actually visiting our site and reading our content


are?


Yeah, of course it does.


LinkedIn, another analytics platform that kind of sucks, but locations, job functions,


seniority, titles, these are things that are important to us.


We need to understand who these people are.


Email databases, same thing.


We can get this info.


Another way to do this that I think is pretty cool, SEMrush has this display advertising


tool.


And in it, you can go and see if you're running display ads, who the audience is you're actually


targeting.


Now, if you're not running display ads, you can go and put your competitors in to see


who they're actually targeting.


So now you're not just getting your visitors, you're getting an industry perspective.


Take a look, right?


It's not great, but it's still valuable.


And let's be honest, when we're thinking about who they are and what they care about, this


is essentially the heart of an SEO's job.


We're figuring out what they care about, what they search for, what they like.


And again, it's taking these tools that we have and we use and thinking about them in


a different way.


I use BuzzSumo all the time.


I talk about BuzzSumo all the time.


I love it.


I think it does a million things that are amazing for content research.


They also have an influencer tool in there.


And within it, I can go in and see who's sharing a specific piece of content.


So whether it's from me, whether it's from a competitor, whoever it is, I can see who's


sharing it.


I can also see what they're interested in.


I can see the topics that they care about.


I can see the domains that they share content from.


That's what they care about right there.


Keywords Everywhere is an amazing plugin.


If you're not using this for keyword research or content research, download it right now.


Just stop listening to me and go download this.


It is good.


It has everything.


It basically gives you like Ubersuggest results and what people also search for right there


in your browser.


And hopefully they bring back, they had one that it puts in your own page and it tells


you what's relevant.


Hopefully they bring that back.


Use this, right?


These are what people care about.


These are the things, right?


This is keyword research.


We do this all the time.


Here's another tool.


A lot of times when I talk about this, specifically this, I'll use keywordtool.io, which I think


a lot of people are familiar with.


But I came across this tool recently that I think is so unbelievably cool.


They have a free version.


You don't necessarily get search volume, but also who cares?


You can put in a term and you can get all of the related terms around it.


But what makes it awesome is this.


It will give you YouTube.


It will give you Google News.


It will give you Google Images.


It will give you Amazon, DuckDuckGo.


What people care about in those places are different.


And this will show you that.


Here's what people are talking about on this platform versus this.


Free tools, really cool.


This helps us understand what our audience actually cares about.


Of course, that leads to their problems.


If we're thinking about what they care about, we're also thinking about what problems they


have.


And this is great because this is another thing as content marketers we do all the time.


We're figuring out how to address questions.


We're using the tools we have to find questions.


And so I know most people are familiar with Answer the Public, FAQ Fox, things like that.


So I wanted to show a couple other ones that I've been using.


SEMRosh has a topic research tool within the platform now.


And in it, it will give you all of the different topics related to that particular keyword.


And it will also show you all the headlines and all the questions associated to that.


Awesome.


That is fantastic data.


Those are the problems your customers have.


BuzzSumo, same thing.


It will give you all of the questions associated to it.


And yesterday when Ross was talking about create that content and then go put it elsewhere,


right here, this is telling me that these questions are in Quora and here's the link.


Well now when I have that content, I can take it and go put it there.


This is giving me all of that in one place.


A newer tool that I like that kind of does everything, so it goes a little bit above


and beyond Answer the Public.


It's story based.


So it is paid.


You can try it for free, but it's like 14 bucks a month or something.


But essentially it gives you all of the questions associated to a term.


It also gives you phrases and it gives you demographics of the people who are asking


those questions.


Don't ask me how it does it.


I'm not asking questions.


Sounds like a privacy thing, but I'm going to use it while it's here.


We have to figure out how to solve people's problems if we want to create content that


actually resonates with our audience.


We have to understand that who, the what, and their problems and how we solve them.


We also have to think simple.


I know that can be hard because we're not really taught to do that.


We're taught to write these long pieces of content.


We're told that, oh, 2,000 word pieces tend to do better.


Okay, well I guess I'm writing 2,000 word pieces now.


That's sort of our mentality.


But the reality is we need to speak to what our audience cares about.


Has anyone seen this brand, Summersalt?


No?


Okay, well they do an absolutely amazing job.


So they're a swimwear company and they're all about body positivity and inclusivity,


environmental awareness, which is kind of a lot for just selling a swimsuit.


But they do it well and they tell their message and their story in a way that that actually


comes across in a very simple way.


This is pulled from their Instagram and you can see there's not a ton of words.


But when I see that, I am well aware of what their message is.


They also do this.


And this is one of the coolest pieces of content I have come across in a really long time.


Because if you're a woman trying to buy a bathing suit on the internet, it's like throwing


a dart with a blindfold.


You do not know, right?


You do not know what you're getting.


And if you're searching for what bathing suit size should I use, you find things like this.


No it's still going and I don't know how to find my bathing suit size.


Still going.


Oh, we're done.


Or you get a chart like this.


Again, not really that helpful.


What they created was a tool that asks you some simple questions and then gives you the


recommended size in some suits that you might be interested in.


That's awesome.


And yes, we don't all sell swimsuits.


I work with a lot of B2B companies who sell software and guess what?


This still applies.


Think about the tools that you use.


When you think about crawl tools, how do they charge based on URLs?


When you think about the rankings tool you use, how do they charge based on keywords?


What if there was a tool like this that actually guided you through it to help you figure out


what plan you needed and what piece of software you needed?


It's simple.


It's helpful.


It would be much easier.


Sometimes we just have to think about things in a simpler way.


We have to give our customers what they need and we can't make them dig for it.


And you know, as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about the content specifically


in our space that's always stood out to me and that I still remember.


Does anyone remember this?


No one?


Oh my God, it's so funny.


So years ago when there was like a million social media platforms coming out, we couldn't


figure out what any of them did.


Avalanche Media went and created the social meowdia breakdown of social platforms.


And you know why?


Because people love cats.


You saw Rob's presentation.


He loves cats.


People love cats.


But what it does is it gives me this in a way that wasn't just someone writing about


what every social media platform is.


And they continue to update it to this day because it still gets links.


It's still fun.


It's still simple.


Buffer's image social media sizing, I use this all the time.


I don't even have it bookmarked.


I just know that if I need sizing for Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is, I can Google


buffer social media images and this will come up.


They keep it updated.


See here's another one.


So See here has this Screaming Frog guide to basically doing anything.


And anytime I'm using Screaming Frog and I have a question on how to do something, inevitably


the answer is in here.


It's easy.


It's simple.


And that's what all of these things have in common.


They're helpful and they're simple and they answer my questions.


But keeping things simple is actually pretty hard.


How do we actually do that?


Well, there's a few things.


First is you got to get to the point.


And if anyone is ever in Boston and you love dingy, smelly bars, there is a bar called


the point that's pretty sweet.


Go there.


If you've ever looked for a recipe online, you've probably encountered this.


See the recipe yet?


No, we're still waiting.


I'm never going to get to make this mac and cheese.


Look, a lot of things that recipe bloggers do, I get it.


They're building a site based on their story.


They're creating the story to connect with their audience, to resonate with their audience,


to keep people coming back.


If I just want the recipe, give it to me.


Put a link at the top that says get recipe.


Make it simple.


I shouldn't have to dig through words and words and words just to find the recipe for


mac and cheese.


I would have given up.


Screw your word count.


Seriously.


I know that we're fighting the search results.


I spent endless hours in the search results looking at my content, competitors' content,


what's in there, to try to make mine better.


Often, that means bigger and better.


It doesn't mean you have to make everything bigger and better.


Think about those questions we talked about.


Whether creating a how-to guide, a video, even a comprehensive guide, make the answers


easy to find.


Don't bury them.


Every piece of content doesn't have to be the best and biggest or the biggest.


It just has to answer the question.


There's a tool called e-summarizer.


Essentially, what it does is you can take your text and you can put it into this tool


and it'll summarize it for you in a certain number of sentences.


If you're ever thinking, gosh, this piece is getting really wordy, go throw it in there


because it'll give you the takeaways.


Honestly, it does a pretty good job and it's free.


It's not going to be perfect, but it'll show you, oh, hey, maybe there are some things


that I can cut out.


Lastly, if we want to keep it simple, we have to be helpful.


Those pieces I shared, they're helpful.


That's why I remember them.


That swimsuit fitting tool, yeah, it's cool, but it's also really freaking helpful.


Think simple just means giving your audience what they want in a direct manner.


We've talked about how we can help our audience.


We've talked about their problems.


We've talked about how we can keep it simple.


This is something that I really struggle with and I think a lot of us really struggle with


this.


That's the creative side.


You know how I know that's the case?


Because of this.


Stop with the shitty stock images, please.


Yes, yes, oh, dear Lord.


They're easy, right?


They're easy to find.


We have, okay, we know that if I add an image to social media updates, it's going to increase


my engagement.


Well, you know what?


You don't have to add a crappy piece of crappy image.


Just do it right.


What we want to create are images that connect customers to our brand, that inspire them


to take action, to get their attention, and stand out in a sea of junk.


I came across this ad on Facebook a couple months ago.


You know how it's good?


I stopped and clicked.


Yeah, I clicked on a Facebook ad.


It was fun.


It was colorful.


It caught my attention.


Do you know what else happened?


A couple weeks ago, I was in REI, and I came across these coats.


I remembered it.


Guess who's the proud new owner of a windbreaker?


Just kidding.


They didn't have my size, but I'm still on the lookout, guys.


Just imagine how clever this ad is and how good it is that not only did it stop me in


the middle of my Facebook scrolling, it caught my eye in a store, and I remembered it, and


I tried it on.


Now I've been on the lookout for this specific jacket.


That is good stuff, and here's why that's important.


We remember what we see.


80% of people remember what they see versus 20% who remember what they read.


That's the impact that visuals can have.


Here's where it gets challenging.


For you and I, I think, well, I don't really have time for this.


This isn't really my job.


I'm not a Photoshop expert.


The great thing is you don't have to be anymore.


We live in a time with technology that makes this stuff easy, that makes it accessible.


This little GIF right here that I put in the slideshow took me less than a minute to make.


This is a silly GIF I made for National Chocolate Chip Day.


It's important to have cookies in the workplace.


I'm not saying this is good, but what I am saying is I'm not great with technology, and


I managed to create something that was better than a stock photo in under three minutes.


We have the ability to go above and beyond.


We don't have to live in stock image hell.


We don't.


We're going to get into some tools, because this is MozCon, and we need tools.


We want tools.


Before we do that, I want to talk about some things that you should think about when creating


your image.


The first is to choose colors wisely.


If you've ever gone to a conversion conference or watched a conversion presentation, they


talk a lot about colors.


You can change a banner, and it might lift your leads by 50 percent.


That's insane.


Colors make a difference in the psychology of how we as humans respond.


I have a lot of security clients.


They use red because it means strength.


Social networks use blue because trust and loyalty, which has never seemed more ironic.


These colors, they matter.


When you're thinking about your images, think about what you want to convey to your audience.


We also want to add movement.


That Cotopaxi ad, it caught my eye because, yes, it was colorful, but it also moved.


It grabbed my attention amongst just a sea of static imagery.


This isn't surprising.


Video posts receive 38 percent more engagement than image posts.


Of course they do.


What about location?


I do not think this is something we think about.


If you're a local business, use local images.


Go out there and take photos of what's in your town.


I was reading this study, and I loved this because I thought this made such a great point.


There's a reason why the first thing we ask people is, where are you from?


That's who we're connected to.


That's who we are as people.


We're connected to our community and our town.


When I see things from Boston in movies or in ads, I think, wow, they must get me.


I know that.


I'm familiar with that.


Why immediately connect with that?


Think about that.


It's not hard.


How often are you really considering the location of where your photos are?


Tools.


I could go on and on about this.


There's a ton of tools that are really amazing for creating images and videos and everything


else.


I picked these because these are ones that I use pretty regularly.


They're also free or have a free version, which is important when you don't have a big


budget.


Pixlr's awesome.


Pixlr's actually a Photoshop alternative that's based in your web browser.


They have ads on it.


Not a big deal.


It's really great if you just need to crop something, if you need to replace something,


you need to make an icon for a presentation, whatever it might be.


Super easy to use.


Free again.


If you have not seen this tool, go check it out.


I don't even care if you stop ignoring my presentation because this thing is amazing.


One of the things I struggle with the most, especially when it comes to Photoshop, is


getting rid of a background.


Remove.bg will do that for you.


It works really well specifically with people with photos versus landscape pictures, but


it's so awesome.


It's free.


You put something in there and it removes a background for you right away, giving you


a transparent image.


Snappa, essentially an alternative to Canva.


I think most people are probably familiar with Canva.


Pretty basic.


I know most people are familiar with Canva because I see a lot of the Canva graphics


on social media updates.


Snappa takes that a little bit above and beyond.


They have a free version.


Pretty great.


Even their paid version is pretty low cost, but it allows you to create graphics that


are a little more interesting, a little more colorful, a little more eye grabbing than


what you might find on Canva.


All of the screen grabs and screen recordings and GIFs that you've seen in this presentation


were built through RecordIt.co.


It's a free app.


You can download it.


Essentially, it takes screen recordings, turns them into GIFs for you that you can download.


Now, why that's important is that there's a lot of times that words simply can't explain


something in a way that an image or video can.


Maybe you don't want to create a full video.


Here's an example.


If someone can't figure out how to use your software interface, why not create a quick


screen grab of where they can find something?


Put it on the FAQ page.


Put it on the support page.


Whatever it might be.


It's really easy to use.


Giphy's another one.


Giphy has an app, so if you want to do things on your phone, you can throw some photos in


there.


You can throw a video in there.


Whatever it might be, it'll create a GIF for you.


I do think they watermark them, so if you don't mind that.


Which brings me to your phone.


When people say that they can't create images or they can't create videos or they don't


know how, that is bullshit because what we have on our phones right now is utterly unbelievable.


My camera takes better photos than my actual camera.


On top of it, I can do things like create videos.


I can edit videos.


I can take screen grabs on my phone.


Screen recordings.


I didn't even know you could do this until I was making this presentation, you guys.


That's cool.


There's always new things coming out.


For videos, a couple other ones that I sometimes put in here is Biteable, which is a nice one


that'll allow you to cut and paste video.


Lumen's five, really easy.


Great for making quick videos for social, cool things.


Again, free version.


Why am I telling you this?


Because this list of tools could go on and on, but the point is, it's easy for us to


create something that's better, to make something that's more impactful.


This is a little bit off topic, but it's MozCon, and that means I need to talk a little bit


about search and how we can figure out how to take advantage of images and search results


because we're seeing images and search results all the time now.


We're seeing videos and search results all the time.


Here's how we can reverse engineer it.


In SEMrush, if you go and put your domain, you can see what you're ranking for that actually


has images or video results in them.


Now I can go and take a look at the search results to see, oh, here are the types of


images that are showing up.


Here's the intent of this.


Now I can create a better image.


I can put it in my post or my article that's already ranking, and now I have a pretty good


chance of also getting into that image result.


You can also do this the opposite way.


If you're trying to figure out keywords and what have images in search results, throw


in a keyword and filter by images.


Awesome, right?


If you're struggling to figure out where to start, this is where to start because you're


not just focused on the user.


You're also focused on search.


As SEOs, we're held accountable for all our metrics.


Take a look here.


This is a tip that Will gave years ago, but he was talking about Quora, and it actually


works with any domain.


Basically, you can put a domain into SEMrush, and it'll spit out all the things that that


site is ranking for, and then I can filter by keyword.


If I'm thinking I want to start making how-to videos, but I'm not sure where to start, right


here, find which search results already have videos there.


That's where you want to start.


Same thing with Pinterest.


Yesterday, Ross talked about adding some of your content, putting it in Pinterest.


Here's another way to do that.


We're kind of double-dipping.


This is exciting, you guys.


I'm telling you how to hack the search engines.


Don't tell Ross, Jones.


Our images play a role in our content, right?


Getting creative, it doesn't have to be hard, but if you really want to make something people


remember, sometimes we have to go beyond words.


You just have to, which takes me to this last piece, which is telling a story.


I started with the idea of reading and telling a story and that concept of creating something


that people remember.


Honestly, images can do that a lot better sometimes, but stories in our content are


really important to creating those things that people remember.


I'm going to prove it to you.


One, a stat, because people believe in stats.


Messages delivered to stories 22% more memorable than just facts.


Here's how I'm going to show that to you.


Let's say I have a bakery.


I make dog birthday cakes, because that's also a thing, and they're very expensive.


I'm telling you that dogs love birthday cakes.


Cool, I'm sure they do, Case.


What if I show you this?


Yeah, look how happy he is.


He's so happy about that cake.


I freaking love this picture.


Get content from your customers of the dogs actually enjoying cake.


Here's the perfect example of where user-generated content can be really powerful.


I'm telling a story much better than this does.


Wegmans, I talked earlier about how they talk about how they partner with local farmers.


So does everyone, right?


Farm to table.


Okay, great.


They have things like this.


At Wegmans, we work hard to bring you the freshest, best tasting, highest quality foods.


We even have our own organic farm and partner with family farms that share our values right


here in New Jersey.


Wegmans has an interest in us doing a good job.


They're a family operation.


They wanted more of a partnership.


They want good quality product.


I get a sense of satisfaction working with somebody who's interested in organic agriculture


and being successful.


Better tasting food grown right here in our region.


Every day, you get our best.


I love that guy.


I want to buy stuff from him, right?


And that's better than just telling me he's a local farmer.


I could go on and on about this.


But the gist is, this is how we get people to remember our brands.


And it doesn't have to be expensive.


It doesn't have to be big.


This is how you get people to walk into REI and almost buy your coat.


So I want to end with this.


We can always get better, right?


As SEOs, as content marketers, as digital marketers, whatever it is we are, we're always


trying to figure out how to be better, how to get better.


We talk a lot about where is Google going and where is search going, where is content


going.


This is where it's going.


It's going to a place where we cut out all of the junk and we actually show people the


things that they care about and we get creative.


And that starts here with these four things.