There's a very, very strong corporate culture around Moz, unlike a lot of the startups that


MozCon 2014 - 23 - A Mozzy View with Sarah Bird and John Cook

I cover.


As you get to become a bigger company and now you're running it as CEO, how do you maintain


that culture and that spirit as it relates to your employees and your customers and clients?


That is the question that I think about most, right?


Because building a technology company is all about having great people supporting you.


It's a knowledge business.


And great people both on my team and great people both in the community, right?


So I know that to have the people that I want to work with that are going to work hard with


me and that we're all going to enjoy, I need to have a great culture.


It's absolutely a business imperative to me, and it's a moral imperative to me as a person,


right?


There's no easy blueprint about how to scale tag fee.


And at any given time in the company's history, there have been different things we've struggled


with at different times.


So just as a case example, transparency, right?


Genuine value.


And in the early days of Moz when you have 20 people, transparency is a lot easier because


you have more perfect communication more easily.


If you want to know what's going on, you probably already know what's going on because we're


all in the same room sitting right behind each other and we're all going to just talk


about what we did today, what we want to do tomorrow and hash it out.


Now when you have a distributed team, you know, in the future when we have different


time zones even we're operating in or different languages on the team, right, that the challenge


of how do you have transparency when communication is so much more challenging, it's a big problem,


And we've just got to work at it, we've got to adapt, we've got to try new things, and


it's a marketing challenge in a way.


I like to think of it as like how do I help the people in my team find out what they need


to know in the moment they need to know it.


So I think about it like that too.


I don't have all the answers.


I do know that, you know, it's not something that I alone create and that it's something


that's shared.


It's something that we as a team co-create every single day because the culture isn't


just about the perks, which obviously I love, paid paid vacation forever, but it's mostly


about how are we going to make this decision today, you know, how good are we doing at


making decisions quickly that are informed but are also somewhat fearless so they can


be truly innovative.


And that's just based on, you know, we have 135 people and how they do their work every


day.


Yeah, well, great.


Well, as a journalist covering you, I hope you never get rid of the transparency aspect


of it.


I wish more companies had that because it is quite nice to cover a company that relishes


and triumphs, triumphs that or supports that.


So that's really great.


So as I mentioned when we were starting the talk, you kind of came in and took over the


company at a real pivotal time and took over from Rand, who obviously put a big mark and


stamp on the company.


So as you transition here over the next two years, what's the biggest, what are the biggest


challenges or hurdles that you see in front of Moz and how are you going to get over those?


So Rand and I have always been great partners.


In fact, I'm a huge believer that you can't do anything truly interesting and powerful


and impactful in this world alone, right?


You just, you can't move a mountain by yourself.


You have to have great partners around you.


So Rand has certainly been that for me and I've learned a lot from him and continue to


every day and that partnership continues.


So what got Moz to where we are, right, that I was there with Rand together and the, you


know, it's still going to evolve.


It is going to change.


We are going to be dynamic.


But it isn't like suddenly, you know, there's a new sheriff in town and the company is completely


different and I like to joke with people like we're making waffle irons now, right, just


to sort of freak them out for a minute that we're going to go totally off course.


But that said, right, there are certain things that in order to scale an organization, right,


I'm putting more emphasis on that when we were a smaller company we didn't have to emphasize


as much.


And so there's like the dreaded P word which is process, right, and there's really bad


process that, you know, sucks the soul out of you and your work and there's good process


that theoretically if it's done well, right, it's supposed to enable you to move more quickly


and to make better decisions and to have more autonomy, right.


So I'm more focused on how do I get a large group of people in a complicated business


moving more quickly and having ownership while still making sure we're headed in the same


direction.


So you'll see things like shifting to instead of just the E team making strategic decisions,


making sure that we're really leveraging and growing our full extended leadership team.


You've already heard me talk about making sure we're being incremental in our development.


I want to continue that practice and get better at it over time.


Other things, right, keeping always keeping focused on tag fee and recognizing that as


the company gets bigger I can't just assume that everyone's going to have the skills to


be tag fee.


Everyone we have has the desire and I don't think there are a lot of people who show up


to work that's like I just really want to be a jerk and make everyone else's lives miserable


and make it very hard for other people to make decisions, right.


No one's like that.


But having the skills to actually come in and say how do I lead a very difficult meeting


and bring people back to the table where they have diverse viewpoints, that's a talent and


a skill and you can learn it.


So you'll see me putting in place a lot of training on leadership and management because


I care deeply about the experience of being on the Moz team and I think that gets reflected


back to the community, right.


I think that if people are happy in their work then they're going to be better to the


people around them that they work with.


So hopefully you'll see that continue to grow.


Other things, I mean obviously we still love marketing.


We still think this is an incredible field that's changing very quickly that needs technology


to help solve the problems.


I mean I was so inspired by this conference and looking at all the different tools out


there and thinking like wow, we could do that, we should do that, that's awesome, we could


bring that together, what would that be like if we paired that with Moz.


So we'll continue our passion on trying to help marketers do their job better to bring


integrity to this discipline, to bring the customer experience first and be that voice


for the white hat inbound marketer.


Great.


So I'm sure there are a lot of entrepreneurs out in the crowd that would want to hear from


you.


You were the eighth employee at Moz, have been part of this journey, the ups and downs.


For those that are out there starting their own businesses or projects or tools, what


sort of advice could you provide to them as they embark on that journey?


Gosh, I just hate giving advice because there's all kinds of stuff that worked for me that


I wouldn't necessarily advise.


Good lessons can come from the things you messed up.


For example, I was an attorney before I came to work at Moz and I was the eighth employee


and that really has worked well for me.


What an opportunity for me and I was able to contribute a lot to Moz.


But I wouldn't advise anyone.


On your early team, once you take a round of money, you should really hire one of your


best friends who's also an attorney.


I would not give that advice to anyone.


At the same time, if Brant and I hadn't had a previous friendship that was really grounded


in shared values and a shared perspective on the world, we would not have survived the


early years because the early years are hard.


So if there's a kernel of advice, it might be work with people who you trust so, so much


that when you're having those disagreements about a business decision, you can say, you


know what?


I love this person and I know they mean well.


Let's get back to the table and figure this out because I know that they are a good person


and I care about this relationship.


That helps get you through the hard times and then it just makes that relationship even


stronger.


Some of my advice, I think, what do you take out of that?


Resiliency, relationships matter.


Don't give up.


Be a learner.


I've learned a ton.


I don't think there's any real training that you can go through that really prepares you


for running your business because every business is different and there isn't some magical


school that suddenly you have all the skills.


You have just got there's no shortcut.


You've just got to plow ahead and learn and ask questions and try again and then try something


else the next time and hopefully you're heading in the right direction as you go.


Right?


So I have no silver bullets and I'm terrible at advice.


Great.


Well, we're going to cut to questions here in about five minutes or so and remember to


come up to the mics if you have a question but I'm also soliciting questions via Twitter


so just tweet at me, John H. Cook and I'll take a look at those.


I'm going to go to Twitter for a question right now.


This comes from Colin Eggleston and he is asking what problems do you face now in Internet


marketing that you look forward to not having to deal with in the future?


Wow.


Problems in Internet marketing I look forward to not having to deal with in the future.


I'm not sure that I have a problem that I think is suddenly going to go away.


I mean, I think that things are changing and evolving in the industry but I don't know


that that means it will go away in the future.


I mean, I think that the improvements that Google has made fighting spam I think is good


for the industry and I think has changed some of the dynamics and the tactics that marketers


are using.


And so I think that's good.


Right?


And I think that hopefully in the future we're going to have to worry less about spamming


link networks and can focus on what Will will call RCS which I think is great for the industry.


But I don't think that's going to suddenly happen overnight and I think there's always


going to be new exploits.


Okay.


Good.


Well, we'll come back to those and remember we're going to have questions here in a few


minutes.


The other question I have is as the company scales and it gets bigger and you've touched


on this a little bit in terms of just the entrepreneurial culture that you're trying


to breed within Moz, how do you continue to take risks and do new projects and roll out


new features and tools?


What's the strategy for doing that because people in the audience will want to know that


you're going to continue to innovate and create new and creative interesting things.


So how are you going to do that as the company gets bigger?


There's a lot of different tactics that we work through.


Right?


And at its base we have to come clean to do something great, to do something innovative,


you're going to fail sometimes and not every project is going to stick.


I heard that actually, that theme echoed a lot in the different marketing initiatives


that are presenters.


You have to try a lot of things because some of them are going to fail but you've got to


think big to really be exceptional and be okay with that and you can't punish failure.


If you really want a truly creative environment, if you punish failure, you are going to stifle


that creativity.


So from a leadership perspective, from a culture perspective, we have to be willing to say


like okay, let's try it and if it doesn't work, okay, well, what's the learning from


that and now we know, let's try something else.


So there's definitely a cultural piece to it.


Speaking also as an entrepreneur, it really helps to have good capital so that you can


make some investments and have failure tolerance built into the way you run your system or


your business so there's that stuff as well, making sure that you run your companies, that


you're not putting all your eggs in just one basket, right, that you're being smart about


risk.


But fundamentally, I think that we as a community inspire each other and it's events like this


where new ideas are born, where new partnerships are made, where you spark an interest in me,


you spark an interest in my product team and that is where the creativity and the innovation


comes and it's from that collaboration, that listening, the willingness to say crazy ideas


and let them kind of play out together.


So you need that creative destruction and innovation within the company to keep it moving


forward and it sounds like you're going to continue to do that.


Are there specific tools that you would like to roll into Moz that you're working on or


would like to share with the audience?


Gosh, there's a lot of tools that I look at with Envy, right?


Yeah, I think that there's just a lot of new great, I'm really interested in content optimization,


right?


I think good SEO has always revolved around great content that is meaningful for people


and so that's just a natural marriage and I would love to incorporate that.


I'm also really passionate about video as the web gets increasingly diverse in the media,


the media that you find in search results, et cetera, and so I was intrigued by, was


it Unruly Analytics I saw yesterday?


It was like, wow, that sounds really cool, right?


There's just a lot of stuff like that that I'm jealous of.


I think another theme from this conference that has really come through is how important


targeting is and segmenting and understanding who your user base is.


A lot of the presentations were about how important context is.


We heard that.


So that's really got a lot of the just synapses firing around how do we build the ability


to segment and provide context inside the tool.


There's a lot of interesting companies doing that kind of work.


So I'm getting a lot of great questions in from Twitter.


Here's another one.


Would Moz accept an acquisition offer if it came your way?


Gosh, you know, this is so, so I love my job, guys.


I just love my job and I love working for Moz and I have a hard time even imagining


what is a place I would rather work, right?


Because Moz is weird.


We are different.


We have conversations that other companies don't have because we are serious about tag


fee.


It can be a little bit of a pain in the butt sometimes for other people in other companies


and it can be a rough entry into Moz when you're used to how other companies would think


about things, right?


That's precious to me and it's more precious than just money, right?


So I'm focused on I just want to build a really valuable company that provides value to the


users, that provides values to my team and that is acting in integrity with our tag fee


values.


So it might be hard to mesh with other companies.


It's going to be hard.


I mean, I'm totally open and I can imagine, is that a yes or no?


It is a I don't know.


And I could imagine a world where maybe there is an acquisition partner who would let us


run with what we have and not meddle with it, but I'm also a realist, right?


And that when you join a bigger organization, there is going to be change.


So that offer would have to be so amazing and it would have to be from a company that


really doesn't just tolerate tag fee, but that would want to take what we have in tag


fee and bring it into their organization in order for me to be like, oh, yeah, let's do


it.


This is the marriage we've been looking for.


Great.


We'll keep those questions coming.


We might have time and I'm going to go to the mic here shortly, but before we do, I


want to do a quick rapid fire question and answer with you.


I'm going to give you one word or a quick phrase and I want you to respond with a quick


one word response or quick phrase.


Do I get any passes?


We'll give you one pass, but hopefully not.


So let's start with marketing.


Tag fee.


Okay.


Venture capital.


Partner.


Rand.


Oh, I just love that guy.


I'm serious.


He's like my brother.


Lawyers.


Ooh.


Highs and lows.


You are one.


I am.


Recovering.


Are you taking your pass on lawyers?


No.


I like a lot of lawyers and I've worked with some good ones.


I do think it's interesting that my core group of friends that I went to law school with,


only one of them is still practicing law today.


One of them is a chef and the other one, she's doing other creative stuff.


They, lawyers manage risk and they try to tell you how to avoid risk and I, turns out,


I like to understand risk, but I also like to exploit it and take advantage and be courageous,


so that's a little bit of a different line of a personality.


Alternatively, a lot of lawyers really enjoy the conflict, right?


And I enjoy working through problems, which is not the same thing as loving to argue.


Okay.


How about Google?


That's okay.


This is going to make me really unpopular, but guess what?


I actually fucking love Google.


I use Gmail constantly.


I'm on their calendar all the time.


I am searching constantly.


I get so much good stuff from Google, so I have a hard time being a Google hater because


it would make me feel like a hypocrite, right?


There is a lot of really, I mean, the stuff they're doing with the self-driving cars,


I'm just like, wow.


I mean, who else is going to do that stuff if not Google, right?


I'm really proud of a lot of the work they do.


So it's not easy.


It's not as simple as like, oh, man, those guys are totally exploiting us and they're


playing with SEOs and they're ruining small businesses, right?


There are definitely practices and policies and sometimes technologies that tick me off,


but it's just like, you know, it's almost like people, right?


People are complex and you can love them and you can love so many things about them and


then have one or two things that you're just like, yeah, but that part really pisses me


off.


I still love you and we'll be friends forever, but like that thing you do, dude, I don't


dig it.


It is not cool.


It's like family or friends.


I don't know.


That makes me I think a little bit unusual in this audience is I have a big like, wow,


Google does cool stuff that I use constantly all day.


How about aprons?


I love my aprons.


So I used to be a cleaning lady for several years in college and in high school and I


got in the habit of wearing my apron while I cleaned and it became this sort of like


when I go to work I put on my apron and then also as a woman you don't usually have pockets


in your clothes.


That's changing, right, ladies?


Like they're making more and more dresses with pockets.


It's changing my life, right?


So maybe someday I won't have to have the apron, but for right now the apron is a regular


part of my work where I'm also really messy.


I spill all the time and dry cleaning is expensive.


So you have the little apron and you have your pocket, even your cell phone and you


have the pen you need and maybe you have your notebook and a couple times I've interviewed


people for jobs at Moz.


It's supposed to be rapid fire.


Sorry.


I like this.


This is fun.


I'm learning something new about you.


Yeah, so a couple times I've interviewed people at Moz for jobs and I'll come in to interview


them with the apron and you can just see this expression on their face like oh my God, we


have to wear aprons if we work there.


This is a weird place.


This is a really weird place, right?


Okay, we'll move on quickly.


Roger?


Oh, gosh.


The first time I saw Roger, 2009, Matt Heilman, our art director, had been working on him


on Roger, unbeknownst to the rest of us.


We didn't ask for a mascot.


He just had inspiration around it and he put it up on the conference room screen, back


in the one that was above the brewery in Capitol Hill and my heart just melted and everyone


just went oh my God and I was like in love immediately, right?


And then Scott Welby, a fantastic contributor at Moz, he's gone on to do other great things.


He looked at him and within 30 seconds was like his name is Roger and we were all like


yes, yes it is, right?


It was just a magical, magical moment.


Very good.


And let's finish with your favorite swear word in the spirit of James Lipton.


I have so many.


I'm terrible.


And I'm doing very well right now.


I think there's only one F bomb.


That's great.


I am doing very well code of conduct, ladies.


So the F word, I like that one a lot.


Get you done.


I know, I know, but it's in context, right?


It's in context.


So I like them all except for I don't really like body parts swear words.


That's a little over the edge for everyday work.


If anyone is up at the mics, it's hard to see out there.


We have a couple quick minutes here if we have a question or two if anyone wants to


come to the mic and ask a question for Sarah.


Otherwise we can go back to the tweet stream.


Looks like we have one coming here.


Brave souls.


Hustle back there.


Let's pick someone.


I think there's someone.


There we go.


Hey, has Moz ever considered unbundling some of its products like follower wonk or OSE?


Are you a plant?


Who put you up to this?


We must have a bug in our conference room.


No, I'm actually really intrigued by this, right?


So something that has really been hitting home for me is what a diverse group we have.


What a diverse audience we have.


There are so many people in this room.


We have a core shared passion, but we also have a lot of things that are different about


us.


In Moz right now our strategy has been put it all in pro and they can get everything.


As a marketer, I think that's really challenging to provide the best experience for that particular


person.


So we've definitely been playing around with ideas of what could it possibly look like


for Moz if we had follower wonk that was a price point for the people who wanted that


and who were just follower wonk power users, which I'm sure there are people in the room


because it's an awesome tool.


And similarly for other products, right, for Fresh Web Explorer, if you just go nuts about


brand tracking, you probably love that tool.


So yeah, absolutely.


The content initiative, that's another one we've been talking a lot about.


Some people are absolutely going to love this and not care as much about the on page crawl


technical stuff, right?


And then some people want the whole package.


And we want to rethink and explore what could that possibly look like and what would we


have to change internally to make that a success.


Because what an interesting marketing challenge, right, to have all these different funnels


and different customer experiences.


And everyone's been talking about targeting and segmenting and the importance of good


customer experience.


And that would certainly make it a much richer challenge to have this modularized product.


Let's go over to this mic.


So I really admire Moz's company culture and tag feed.


And I wanted to ask, what advice do you have for leaders who have remote teams and are


wanting to maintain a sense of company culture?


That's a really great question.


I don't know that I'm entirely qualified to answer because my remote, I have several people


who do work remote in Washington and we have to fly them up all the time.


And I have about a handful of people in Portland as well right now.


So that's the extent of my remoteness.


And I bet if they were in the room and were up here, I think they'd be like, Moz really


needs to get better at this because it is very hard for me to communicate and the web


conferencing isn't as well set up as it should be.


And my understanding from people who are better at it than we are and that we can learn from


and improve on is that everyone in the company, even if you're in the office, has to learn


to think like a remote employee.


Because it isn't willing, like it's not willingly excluding anybody.


It's sometimes we just forget stuff.


Like oh, yeah, we didn't dial up so and so on the web conference line.


Or we've underinvested in the web conferencing experience because we're not on the other


end of it.


Right?


So from people who I know who do it well say either it works really well if the whole team


is distributed because then by default everyone is used to that level playing field and they


will act accordingly.


Barring that, we have just got to learn to act and think like what if I was not here


right now, how could I have a really rich experience?


And then that also goes to for me, like, you know, we've got to get we've got to remember


and as a marketing company, I think we can do this, you've got to have multiple channels


of communication, right?


Because communication is just key.


It's just key.


What are you celebrating?


What are you changing?


What's going on?


It's a big part of how the company functions and culture is distributed.


So we've got to hit people in multiple ways.


You have to have the intranet updated.


You have to have it on email.


You have to have an in-person meeting, a town hall where they can ask questions.


You can't just have your message in one place.


You need to hit people multiple times and in multiple mediums.


I wish I had more for you other than don't give up.


Well, good.


Well, thank you.


And thank you, Sarah Bird, for taking the time to chat with me today.


Thank you.


Thank you, MozCon.


Fantastic to have you here.


And back to Cyrus.


The 10 Types of Content That Work Best for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat about the types of content, content formats that tend to work


well for SEO.


And I'm talking specifically about content rather than sort of an e-commerce product


page or a contact page or those types of things.


And that's because what we want to try and do here is talk about those of you who are


doing content strategy and content marketing and choosing which content formats you should


potentially use.


So I actually spent a bunch of time over the last few weeks analyzing a few hundred search


results of many, many different kinds, trying to identify the unique, diverse kinds of search


results in which content marketing pieces ranked or the types of pieces that would fit


into the content marketing world ranked.


And so I made this list of ten.


There's actually eleven, but I don't particularly recommend all eleven of these.


And what I've done is below the video, you can see in the text content of this Whiteboard


Friday, I've made a list.


For each of these eleven, I have a URL that's a good example of this and a search query


for which that URL ranks.


So you can get a sense of what this type of stuff looks like.


So you're probably familiar with most of these formats, right?


Things like blog posts, and those could have regular updates or be republished on a regular


basis.


Short form evergreen content and articles, long form articles, photo and visual galleries.


I found a lot of these ranking, especially for things that lent themselves to it.


For example, if you were to search for men's haircut styles.


Detailed and information rich lists of information, interactive tools and content, got some good


examples of those.


Interactive category landers, so this would be like if you search for kitchen designs,


you might land on houses page of various kitchen designs, and that's really a lander to get


you into more content.


So it's not technically a content marketing piece by itself, but it leads you into content


pieces or could.


Multi-page guides, things like Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO, but we have some other examples


too.


Data or complex information that is visualized.


Video, YouTube or embedded video on a particular page, Whiteboard Friday itself being an example


of that.


And then an eleventh format that I don't actually recommend, even though I found it in the search


results quite often, and that is the formal research documents that are usually PDFs or


PowerPoints or those kinds of things.


The reason I don't recommend these formats is because they're actually hard to parse,


they're particularly hard to open on mobile devices, they're not very user friendly, and


most of the time the reason they rank well is simply because they're cited by lots of


other things.


But when you see content marketers invest in one of these spaces and make a document


in one of these other formats that's better and more comprehensive and more useful and


more user friendly, they do a much better job and they tend to rank better too.


So the question is which format should you be using for your project?


This is something we have to do at Moz.


We ask ourselves this question when we're creating content around SEO and around web


marketing information and information of all kinds.


And so there's sort of three big ones that I ask and then a few tips that I've got for


you as well.


But first off I'd like to start with what's the searcher's intent?


What are they trying to accomplish?


Now generally speaking if it's navigation or transaction, content marketing types of


pieces are not the right match for those types of queries.


But if it's informational, which is a huge swath, a massive amount of the searches that


take place on the web and certainly many of the ones that content marketing is designed


to target because then it can turn those people from hey I now know about your brand and I'm


now considering you and I'm thinking about you.


There's a bunch of different variants of these, right?


So things like I'm looking for a quick answer to this question or I'm looking for a deep


comparison of different types of information or different products, different services,


different paths that I could choose to answer the action that I'm about to take, a broad


overview, right?


I could be searching out something, searching for information purely out of curiosity and


intrigue when you go down a rabbit hole around hey I want to know all the films that Meg


Ryan was ever in and then wait a minute, what is that one?


I've never heard of that one.


And let me go learn more about that, right?


So the curiosity and intrigue, professional and scientific interest, and then multi-threaded


exploration.


Look, there's plenty of other types of informational queries.


The key is to ask yourself which of these are most of the people performing this search


query trying to accomplish and then you can do a better job of narrowing down this list.


So you might be able to cut out five or six of these and only leave yourself with a few


options after you've answered this question.


The next one is what actually appears in the search results page?


I mean this two ways.


One, who already shows up there and what kinds of formats are they using?


That can be informational, right?


That can give you some inspiration or it could drive you to want to be different from the


rest of them.


But also I'm asking in terms of the SERP features that appear there.


Are we talking about 10 blue links in ads, which is very, very classic old school but


uncommon these days?


Or are we talking about search verticals appearing in their images, which suggest maybe I should


be thinking about photos or visual galleries or maybe a data or complex information visualized


like maybe an informational graphic or more likely a data visualization that's of high


quality.


I'm not a big infographic fan myself, as you might know from previous Whiteboard Fridays.


Is it news, right?


In which case maybe I want a short form article or a long form article.


Is it videos, in which case I probably want a video.


If we see lots of things like instant answers, people also ask in-depth results.


That could point us toward the complexity of the information and how much people are


willing to go dig into this, right?


So people also suggest that it might be a multi-threaded exploration, a multi-page guide,


or a comprehensive category lander could be a good match there.


If I see an instant answer, probable that a short form Evergreen article could do really


well or a blog post that's regularly updated might do well there.


If I see site links, maps, or local or one of Google or Bing's widgets that essentially


answer the query for you, search for calculator or search for flight prices, they answer that


already.


Search for weather, right?


They answer that already.


Chances are it might be pretty hard to do things in the content marketing world that


will actually have success there.


I might bias you to look for other things.


And then the third question, what's going to resonate with two groups, my audience and


their influencers?


You need to ask these questions about both those groups.


That could mean device type and where you are searching from, right?


So if somebody is searching on a mobile device and they are on the go and this type of query


has an intent that is informational but it's very quick information, you might want to


consider some of this shorter form stuff.


If there is hopeful next steps and you know that that's the case, you might want to give


something like the multi-page guide or the category lander or the interactive tool or


content or that detailed list that gives someone actions they can take right after they've


consumed that information.


And you also want to consider whether this is a person or this is likely to be a person


who is looking for new and interesting formats and they would be fascinated and enjoy exploring


that, or whether they are looking for something familiar and trusted, right, that is not new,


that doesn't make them think at all, it just answers their query and gets them finished.


Some suggestions.


I would say don't ignore new formats, right?


So if some of these are not things you've considered in the past, don't ignore them.


But recognize that you shouldn't just use a format because it's new.


That is a terrible idea.


You should use a format because it works well for your audience, because it serves all of


these functions.


I would suggest learning from who's already ranking, but I wouldn't say that you should


just copy somebody else's format because it's easy to do and familiar.


Make sure that familiar and trusted is the best way that you can compete.


I do suggest looking at these content formats and finding ways to get a competitive advantage


from them.


If all of your competitors are just doing blog posts and short form and long form articles,


you might be able to win with a visual gallery.


You might be able to win with an interactive piece of content or a tool.


You might be able to win with complex information visualized.


That's a powerful thing.


Finally, do use a multi-keyword approach in this analysis.


When I'm saying what is the searcher's intent, I'm asking you to consider all of the words


and phrases that you're hoping to rank for with this piece of content, not just a single


keyword term or phrase.


That will give you the best way to choose the right content format for the search queries


and the overall goal of attracting the right searchers.


All right, everyone.


Look forward to hearing about some of the formats you've used, maybe some that aren't


on this list.


If you have great examples of these you'd like to share, we'd certainly love to see


them.


We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Pinpoint vs. Floodlight Content and Keyword Research Strategies - Whiteboard Friday

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


This week we're going to chat about Pinpoint versus Floodlight tactics for content targeting,


content strategy, and keyword research, keyword targeting strategy.


This is also called the shotgun versus sniper approach, but I'm not a big gun fan, so I'm


going to stick with my Floodlight versus Pinpoint.


Plus, you know, for the opening shot, we don't have a whole lot of weaponry here at Moz,


but we do have lighting.


So let's talk through this at first.


You're going through and doing some keyword research.


You're trying to figure out which terms and phrases to target.


You might look down a list like this.


I'm potentially, well, maybe using an example here around antique science equipment.


And so you see these various terms and phrases.


You've got your volume numbers.


You probably have lots of other columns.


Hopefully you've watched the Whiteboard Friday on how to do keyword research like it's 2015


and not 2010.


And so you know you have all these other columns to choose from, but I'm simplifying here for


the purpose of this experiment.


So you might choose some of these different terms.


Now, they're going to have different kinds of tactics and a different strategic approach


depending on the breadth and depth of the topic that you're targeting.


And that's going to determine what types of content you want to create and where you place


it in your information architecture.


So I'll show you what I mean.


For antique science equipment, this is a relatively broad phrase.


I'm going to do my Floodlight analysis on this.


And Floodlight analysis is basically saying like, okay, are there multiple potential searcher


intents?


Yeah, absolutely.


So that's a fairly broad phrase.


People could be looking to transact around it.


They might be looking for research information, historical information, different types of


scientific equipment that they're looking for.


Are there four or more approximately unique keyword terms and phrases to target?


Well, absolutely.


In fact, there's probably more than that.


So antique science equipment, antique scientific equipment, 18th century scientific equipment,


all these different terms and phrases that you might explore there.


Is this a broad content topic with many potential subtopics?


Again, yes is the answer to this.


And are we talking about generally larger search volume?


Again, yes, right?


This is going to have a much larger search volume than some of the narrower terms and


phrases.


That's not always the case, but it is here.


And for pinpoint analysis, we kind of go the opposite direction.


So we might look at a term like antique test tubes, which is a very specific kind of search.


And that has a clear single searcher intent or maybe two, right?


Someone might be looking for actually purchasing one of those or they might be looking to research


them and see what kinds there are.


Not a ton of additional intents behind that.


One to three unique keywords, yeah, probably.


It's pretty specific.


Antique test tubes, maybe 19th century test tubes, maybe old science test tubes, but you're


talking about a limited set of keywords that you're targeting.


It's a narrow content topic, typically smaller search volume.


Now, these are going to feed into your IA, your information architecture, and your site


structure in this way.


So floodlight content generally sits higher up.


It's the category or the subcategory, those broad topic terms and phrases, and those are


going to turn into those broad topic category pages.


Then you might have multiple narrower subtopics.


So we could go into lab equipment versus astronomical equipment versus chemistry equipment.


And then we'd get into those individual pinpoints from the pinpoint analysis.


Why are we doing this?


Well, generally speaking, if you can take your terms and phrases and categorize them


like this and then target them differently, you're going to provide a better, more logical


user experience, right?


Someone who searches for antique scientific equipment, they're going to really expect


to see that category and then to be able to drill down into things.


So you're providing them the experience.


They predict the one that they want, the one that they expect.


It's better for topic modeling analysis and for all of the algorithms around things like


Hummingbird where Google looks at, are you using the types of terms and phrases?


Do you have the type of architecture that we expect to find for this keyword?


It's better for search intent targeting, right?


Because the searcher intent is going to be fulfilled if you provide the multiple paths


versus the narrow focus.


It's easier keyword targeting for you, right?


You're going to be able to know, hey, I need to target a lot of different terms and phrases


and variations in Floodlight and one very specific one in Pinpoint.


And there's usually higher searcher satisfaction, which means you get lower bounce rate, you


get more engagement, you usually get a higher conversion rate.


So it's good for all those things.


Let me show you an example.


I'll actually create pages for each of antique scientific equipment and antique test tubes


to illustrate this.


And we're back.


So I've got two different types of pages here, right?


One is my antique scientific equipment page.


This is that Floodlight shotgun approach.


And what we're doing here is going to be very different from a Pinpoint approach.


It's looking at, okay, you've landed on antique scientific equipment.


Now where do you want to go?


What do you want to specifically explore?


So we're going to have a little bit of content specifically about this topic.


And how robust that is depends on the type of topic and the type of site you are.


If this is an e-commerce site or a site that's showing information about various antiques,


well, maybe we don't need very much content here.


And you can see the filtration that we've got is going to be pretty broad, right?


So I can go into different centuries.


I can go into chemistry, astronomy, physics.


Maybe I have a safe for kids type of stuff if you want to buy your kids antique lab equipment,


which might be, who knows, maybe you're awesome.


And your kids are too.


And then different types of stuff at a very broad level.


So I can go to microscopes or test tubes, lab searches.


This is great because it's got broad intent foci serving many different kinds of searchers


with the same page because we don't know exactly what they want.


It's got multiple keyword targets so that we can go after broad phrases like antique


or old or historical or 13th, 14th, whatever century, science and scientific equipment,


materials, labs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right?


This is a broad page that could reach any and all of those.


And then there's lots of navigational and refinement options once you get there.


Total opposite of pinpoint content, right?


Pinpoint content like this antique test tubes page.


We're still going to have some filtration options, but one of the important things to


note is note how these are links that take you deeper.


You might, depending on how deep of the search volume goes in terms of the types of queries


that people are performing, you might want to make a specific page for 17th century antique


test tubes.


But you might not.


And if you don't want to do that, you can have these be filters that are simply clickable


and change the content of the page here, right, narrowing the options rather than creating


completely separate pages.


So if there's no search volume for these different things and you don't think you need to separately


target them, go ahead and just make them filters on the data that already appears on this page


or the results that are already in here as opposed to links that are going to take you


deeper into specific content and create a new page, a new experience.


You can also see, right, I've got my individual content here.


I probably would go ahead and add some content specifically to this page that is just unique


here and that describes antique test tubes and what kinds of, the things that your searchers


need, right?


They might want to know things about price.


They might want to know things about make and model.


They might want to know things about what they were used for.


Great, you can have that information broadly and then individual pieces of content that


someone might dig into.


This is narrower intent foci, obviously, serving maybe one or two searcher intents.


This is really talking about targeting maybe one to two separate keywords.


So antique test tubes, maybe lab tubes or test tube sets, but not much beyond that.


And then we're going to have fewer navigational paths, fewer distractions.


We want to keep the searcher because we know their intent.


We want to guide them along the path that we know they probably want to take and that


we want them to take.


So when you're considering your content, choose wisely between shotgun, right, floodlight


approach or sniper pinpoint approach.


Your searchers will be better served.


You'll probably rank better.


You'll be more likely to earn links in amplification.


You're going to be more successful.


Looking forward to the comments and we'll see you again next week for another edition


of Whiteboard Friday.


MozCon 2014 - 09 - Mike King - Digital Body Language

It feels amazing to be here.


Make some noise, MozCon.


So I'm not going to rap this time, but I do have a story.


You guys can start the clock.


I've been on the internet for a really long time.


I've been on the internet more than I've...


If you split my life in half, I've spent more time on the internet than not on the internet.


When I was 14, I was a bit of a computer hacker.


The first place to ever hire me to do anything on the internet was a web space company that


I continued to hack.


The guy came on the Unix chat one day.


He was like, hey, please stop hacking us.


I'll pay you to do something.


He said to me, why don't you just write some tutorials for CGI scripts?


I was like, cool.


He paid me $150 and I used it to buy sneakers.


The reason I say that is because back then I was really into computer hackers, people


like Kevin McNick who used to hack the government.


It's interesting that these days the government is hacking us.


So many people are scared of big data right now because of the fact that the NSA is listening


to your phone calls.


If you've looked at the terms of service on the apps on your phone, there's a lot of apps


that are doing exactly the same thing.


If you look at the Facebook Messenger app terms of service, they can listen to your


calls whenever they want to.


They can take pictures and video whenever they want to.


They can read your phone log.


You might notice that the people that you text that aren't friends of yours on Facebook


start to pop up in the section that says, do you know this person?


It's because of this.


It's all very reminiscent of this scene in Dark Knight where Bruce Wayne shows Lucius


Fox this monitoring thing he has where he can listen to people's cell phone calls and


then fight crime using that.


Lucius Fox says, this is wrong.


Then they use it to save the world.


But the thing is, it's not just that how people are tracking you.


If you're using a loyalty program for discounts at supermarkets, they're tracking you.


If you're using credit cards, they're tracking you.


And then that data is sold back to you or back to marketers rather to do things like


this.


If you guys remember Target a few years back, there was some coverage about a woman who


Target was targeting because they knew she was pregnant based on what she was buying.


Hospitals are getting in on the game now.


They're figuring out when you're going to be sick based on the things that you're buying.


So you can opt out, of course.


But the thing is, to do that, you're going to have a web experience that's not modern.


You have to turn off JavaScript.


You have to not have a Google account, not have a Facebook account.


You have to go on all these registries and things.


But the reality is, this data is here to stay.


None of you are going to do all the things I just showed you.


You're all going to continue to contribute to big data.


And with that point, although there's a thin line between the nefarious things that Facebook


is doing and the NSA are doing, what I'm going to show you today is not inherently evil.


Let's talk about lead generation.


When I say lead generation, you probably get an image in your head that looks like this.


The model that we hear about from HubSpot about attracting users, converting users,


closing users, delighting users, and then all the touch points that go with that.


And when you think about lead generation, one of the key components of that is lead


scoring.


Figuring out how qualified people are by who they are and the actions that they complete


on the website.


And I think about that, and I go, but isn't that all digital marketing?


We do this for everything.


So let's talk about how that applies to more than just lead generation.


It's how HubSpot is reducing churn.


They have something called a customer happiness index, or CHI.


And they've used that to reduce churn of unhappy customers by 33%.


If you saw a post that Dan Barker wrote a couple weeks back about how BuzzFeed is now


capturing tons of data on you and then ultimately using that for suggesting other content that


you can look at.


It's how Netflix and Amazon work.


They do something called collaborative filtering.


And that's just a fancy word that says if people that fit this criteria do A, they're


likely to be interested in B. So it's exactly what Target is doing as well.


What we talked about a few seconds ago, it's the same exact thing.


Now, obviously you can do that, or I wouldn't be up here standing here talking to you about


it.


And for those of you who haven't seen the Sherlock Holmes television series, these images


are from that.


And I'll tell you how that fits in a second.


So first we have to talk about the data that you can capture in order to do things like


this.


Now Google is doing something like this right now.


They have what they call the database of affinity.


And if you remember back in the end of 2011, they consolidated their privacy policies,


which means that all of Google's tools across their ecosystem can now communicate.


And they're using that big data to model people.


And the thing that's cool about that is the applications of it.


So what I think we're seeing with Google Now is the beginning of the personal Internet


valet.


Google wants to figure out by your digital body language what is it that you want before


you specify that you want it.


And they're already doing that with Google Now.


And it's only going to get better.


And they have something called affinity segments, which you can use in paid media to target


specific types of people.


And it's really cool because you can measure in Google Analytics these affinity segments.


So I've obviously talked a lot about personas and things.


This is the opportunity where you can really easily measure people.


But post measurement, excuse me, post engagement measurement is not enough to do what we're


talking about here.


What you need is that data in real time.


Because you want to know what your customers care about or who they are before they make


any specific action, like giving you an email address or downloading content.


So let's talk about that.


Normally I would say use social sign-in for this.


But social sign-in is difficult.


You have to incentivize people in order to get them to do that.


And I've talked a lot about Facebook Connect because Facebook Connect gives you the most


granular data.


That's one of Facebook's superpowers.


They have so much market research data on their users.


And Facebook is the preferred sign-in.


The study from the first quarter of 2014 shows that 42% of people use Facebook as their sign-in,


their preferred sign-in method.


And the thing about that is that Facebook button is on the decline.


People are scared to sign in with Facebook because of all the spam that just ignites


their timelines afterwards.


So what Facebook is doing is putting out this anonymous log-in.


So you're not going to be able to use that Facebook data the same way as much anymore


because people will use this instead.


And Facebook is like, OK, you guys use this so you can test out whether this app is something


you want to log in with.


And then you can come back and give the site your data.


But realistically, more people will end up using this.


So Google and LinkedIn are the go-tos for B2B as far as social sign-in.


But there's less data there.


And I say that, and you might be like, no shit, Sherlock.


OK, well, let's talk about some other stuff.


What you want to do is be able to identify your user.


And there's a concept called browser fingerprinting.


So every browser has a different combination of plug-ins, fonts, user agents, your resolution,


the offset of your computer's clock with the internet clock.


All those things can be used to create a unique string.


And then you can use that to identify users.


So Pants-A-Click did a study on this.


It was about 400,000 users that came to the site.


And they found that the browser fingerprint is 86.3% unique across users.


And another study really highlighted a problem with the browser fingerprint.


On mobile devices, the technology stack is generally the same.


Like my iPhone versus your iPhone will have the same browser fingerprint.


But if you then add the IP to that, you're getting closer to 100% again.


So it's an effective way to measure people.


So at this point, you've got to think about how changeable are these.


Because if somebody disables a plug-in or installs a new font, then their browser fingerprint


changes.


And they found across their 400,000 users that 37.4% of them change fingerprints.


And there's a caveat to that data point because the site that they did this on, they explicitly


said hey, this is about browser fingerprints.


So everybody was now aware of the browser fingerprint and likely changed it because


of that.


So to do this, you use this library.


It's called Fingerprint.js.


It's a JavaScript library.


And you use one line of code, and you can now get the fingerprint for your user.


That is now their unique ID that you can now measure them against when they come to your


site.


So you want to track this in Google Analytics using custom variables.


So now you can specifically understand which user did what based on their click stream


activity and tying them back to that unique identifier.


Additionally, you want to do tracking of events for when they sign in or when they come to


the site.


So then you have those macro trends across your analytics as well.


And you might say, well, I could just use cookies.


Yeah, you could.


But people delete cookies pretty heavily.


I think the data I saw was about 36% of people will delete their cookies.


But the thing is they have something called EverCookie.


And what that does is it installs the cookie into a variety of different places across


the browser.


And then any time one of those places is deleted, all of them repopulate.


So it's cookies that you can't get rid of.


OK, so you're like, yeah, you can track people.


Big whoop, right?


Well, do you know what you can get from an IP address?


Let me tell you.


This is MaxMind.


It's a geo IP location service where you can send an IP address to get a variety of data


points on a given user.


So you can get the country they're from, the city they're from, their longitude and latitude.


You can get their zip code.


If it's on a company network, you can get their organization, the domain name for that


organization.


Right?


Now, MaxMind says they have 83% city level accuracy.


So that's how accurate they say they can identify you at.


But you can use ipinfo.io, which is a cheaper thing that is basically reselling MaxMind's


data, and then you get it straight from their API.


So you can use the zip code from that user to then get their census data.


So you know all the different data points that you can grab from the census.


So what percentage of the people in that zip code are female or male?


Or what type of jobs do these people generally have?


Then you can use this PHP library to, again, get this pretty quickly because it's just


a few lines of code.


From there, you can use that location and the geolocation APIs that Google Maps allows


you to have to get their address.


One caveat with that is that you only get 200 API calls per day unless you are Google


Maps for Business Enterprise Edition.


So you know those folks at Microsoft, they have that little search engine Bing that nobody


uses?


Well, they're so happy to give us free data.


Bing Maps gives you 30,000 API calls a day for free.


And then you know that other navigation software that no one uses anymore, MapQuest?


They'll give you all their data for free.


So you have the address now.


There's the White Pages API.


They have a reverse White Pages API.


You send that address to it, you now get that person's name, phone number, and age.


From your IP address, I can know exactly who you are.


Think about that.


So they say they only have 83% accuracy from Maxmon.


You can use the ACML5 geolocation API to get a specific location on a user.


And if you ever are on a website and it says, you know, the DailyNews.com wants to use your


location, allow or deny, that's what this is.


And they could be doing any of these things with that data.


Okay.


Now, let's kick it up a little further.


You know what the company is, you know what the domain name is, you can ping the CrunchBase


API and get firmographics.


So number of people that work at that company, what industries are they in?


So on and so forth.


Oh, what funding rounds have they done?


Then let's say you're trying to qualify people for SEO.


Well, you can take that domain, send it to the SEMrush API, and then get their paid search


spend.


So, oh, we know this company on my site right now spends 250 grand in paid search.


Yeah, they're probably a qualified lead.


And then you can also take that company and then ping that domain name against BuiltWith


to get the technologies that they are built with.


So the use case for this, let's say I am unbounced, right?


And clearly my competitor is Optimizely.


And somebody comes to my site, I know what their domain is, and then I find out that


they're using Optimizely.


So when they land on my site, I highlight the content about why we're better than Optimizely


as soon as they land on the home page.


That way, you can do far more effective targeting.


But BuiltWith is really expensive.


And there's a Chrome extension called Wappalyzer that does the same thing.


And there's libraries for free that you can download and then use.


So you can also use that location to get the weather of the area that the user is from.


So let's say, for example, I'm a plumber, and I have a special for rain damage or I


don't know, I can't even complete the memo for it because I don't know much about plumbing.


But anyway, you can highlight content around what you would do when it's raining.


So what about an email address?


Because I mentioned that a second ago.


I'm glad you asked.


Rapleaf.


You can get demographic data from an email address.


And they give tons of data.


They give you household income, presence of children, what type of job this person has,


so on and so forth.


These are all the data points that they offer.


It's a ton of them.


Then there's everybody's favorite vacation, paid paid vacation company, Full Contact.


You give them an email address, they'll give you a ton of that demographic data as well,


but they also highlight social media profiles.


So you can get a user's Twitter handle and their number of followers and all their different


social network data.


And they also have something called the company API that they're coming out with, which is


really similar to like a Hoover's or data.com, but it's supposed to be a lot cheaper with


the same type of data.


So again, you can do that from a graphic targeting as well.


So you might ask, how does this affect my privacy policy?


There's no room in my mind palace for that.


You're going to have to ask your legal team.


So let's talk about marketing automation.


Marketing automation is a really cool space that we don't really talk about that much


as SEOs and such.


And it allows you to do really effective personalization of your content.


When I say personalization, I'm mostly talking about making meaningful changes to the content


based on the user.


So on the left here, you have the logged out experience that everyone sees.


On the right, you have something that says like, start your project now, because you're


already signed in and signed up.


So you can make these as personalized as you want based on the data that you can collect.


And it's already proven that simple offers are effective in increasing conversions.


So there's a tool called RocketBolt.


And all it does is it puts that little pop out right there that says, we have an offer


for you.


There's no personalization or anything.


And a lot of small businesses are seeing huge incremental sales just from these little offers.


So I think the one that they highlight on the website, it was like $40,000 in incremental


revenue just from this offer.


So we take that up another step further.


You can do behavior-based personalization.


Now this site is ModCloth.


And what they're doing is based on the products that the shopper or the user puts into their


shopping cart, they are then customizing the experience.


So in this case, someone's putting plus-sized clothing in their shopping carts.


And that user comes back later, and the home page now has imagery highlighting plus-sized


models.


And they've seen a 14% increase in average order values from doing this.


You can do location-based personalization.


This is Visual Site Optimizer.


They just put a little CTA on there that says, we're hiring in New Delhi or something like


that.


And they only showed it to people from New Delhi.


And then they got 149% increase in conversion.


So you might think, all these tools and data and APIs you're showing me, isn't there just


like one tool out there that does all these things?


Of course there is.


Marketo is one of them.


$1,000 a month for 10K unique visits.


No, I can't afford that.


Monetate, they're cool because it's drag and drop.


You don't need any code.


Minimum, $4,000 a month.


I can't afford that either.


Mintigo, they specifically do the scoring and the segmentation of users.


They don't even have a published price.


So you know it's expensive.


Mindful, this is a lower tier product, and it's specifically for e-commerce sites.


And they have a free trial of 14 days.


They have predictive analytics capabilities.


And it's $99 a month.


But the site hasn't been updated in over a year, so I don't even know if it actually


still works.


And then there's Lead Lander, which is something that we use at a former agency that I once


worked at back in the day.


And it costs $2,000 annually.


And all it does is tells you the organizations that came to your site.


It doesn't give you that data in real time at all.


It's just like another analytics tool.


The thing is, everything that I've just showed you, you can build yourself for a fraction


of the price.


And the thing is, tools like Marketo, you still need a developer involved to implement


it.


So why am I going to pay you for a piece of software that I then have to pay someone else


to put on my site when I can just have that person take these libraries and do it themselves?


So what Marketo does specifically in its lead scoring or predictive modeling and everything,


is tracks user data, tracks customer data, and then does some predictive modeling.


I've shown you tools so far and data that covers those first two points.


The only thing that we can't do so far is predictive modeling.


Now in the Sherlock Holmes show on the BBC, he basically makes deductions about people


when he just walks up on them.


Like, I just met you.


Based on how you move and what you're wearing and the stains on your clothes, I know who


you are.


And these cool word clouds happen in the show and you see his deductions.


It's an awesome show.


And anyway, that's what I want you to do with this.


So when we talk about user engagement scoring, that is really to simplify analytics.


Analytics obviously as it stands is great.


We can dig through granular data all day and figure out whatever we want.


But simplifying it by applying scores to each different thing allows you to set it up for


predictive analytics.


And it also quantifies specific actions.


So when a user fills out a form, of course we measure that as a conversion.


But if we give that a value, these things add up over time.


And then you can determine how engaged somebody is.


Are they going to churn?


Are they likely to buy this object?


Are they likely to read more content?


We now have a score that says what that is.


So I generally follow this schema when I do this.


If it's a score of less than 40, then they're not engaged.


They're likely to churn.


They're not coming back to your website.


They won't read more content.


40 to 80, they generally can go either way.


80 to 100, they're highly engaged.


They will be a fan for a long time.


And here's an example of what this model looks like.


This is for a CRM client that I work on right now.


And we have different tiers for each type of user.


You have the unidentified user, the free user, free trial


users, and the subscribers.


And what you'll notice up here is that for a web page visit,


we apply different score based on the channel they come from.


So if they come from search, there's clearly an intent


there that we can capitalize on.


So that's a far more engaged user engagement


than somebody coming from social media.


And then what we do is we specifically


identify high value tasks.


Like in the CRM case, adding a user or adding more deals


are high value tasks.


And the more of these that they complete,


the more engaged they are, the more likely


they are to stay a customer.


So once you set this up, you want


to push these to Google Analytics.


Because again, you want to see what those macro trends are


across all your users.


But you're also going to want to have this in your own database.


So at this point, you have these values corresponding


with different actions.


And Google has something called the Google Prediction API,


where you can set these up and do any type of predictive model.


A lot of people use these for the recommendation systems


like you see on Amazon and Netflix and such.


And I don't have time to explain to you how this works.


But I'm going to do a Moz blog post about it.


You know it's going to be like 12,000 words.


You'll know everything you need.


So if all this stuff sounds daunting to you,


well, it sounded daunting to me at first.


I was like, I never took a statistics class.


Despite the fact that I studied computer science,


I never took a statistics class.


So I checked out Udacity.


And they have a really great course on it.


They actually have a whole data science course


that you can take.


And it's for free.


So check that out.


Now, once you do know this, you can


use a tool called R, which is essentially


statistical computing.


It's programming for math.


And they have a cool class for this as well on Code School,


again, free.


And then there's an integrated development environment


that you can use for that called RStudio.


And it's really cool because you can integrate data


from a variety of sources.


So you can have Google Analytics data piping right into here.


And then you can run your regressions


or your predictive models right there and test them out.


And then once you get good at R, you


can actually build content experiences using just R.


You don't have to know any other code but R


in a tool called Shiny.


So once you're good at R and you want to deploy some models,


they have a specific cloud service called Domino Up


that you can use to deploy those models at scale.


And if you don't want to do any of that,


there's something called Kaggle or Kaggle.


I don't know how you say it.


And it's like 99 designs for data science.


So you have these data science contests.


You want people to solve your problem.


You say, here's what I'll pay for it.


You guys do it.


You come back with all the stuff I need.


Now, use cases for this data because now we


have a ton of it, right?


Well, implementing this stuff across your website


requires what we call a rules engine.


And what that is is a series of if-then statements that says,


if this happens or if a user does this thing,


then do this thing.


And here's an open source library


for implementing that called Ruler.


So you can use this for progressive profiling.


And you'll find this on a variety of the marketing


automation tools.


I think HubSpot does this as well.


So you'll sign up on HubSpot and you have to give all your data.


Next time you come back to download something else,


it might just be one field you fill out.


So this is governed by those rule engines.


It says, if user doesn't have this data and user is X, Y,


and Z, then do this.


You can do this for retargeting placements,


which is a problem a lot of us have,


where we are retargeting people that are already users.


Well, you've identified these people with the browser


fingerprint, and then you know that this is a user.


So if this user with a browser fingerprint we know


comes to the site, we don't retarget them.


And you can use this for dynamic content display.


So if we know a user comes from New York,


they use a Mac, they come from Google,


then we show this type of content.


Or any number of different data points


that we want to use to segment users,


we show them different things with that rule.


And there's also something called EZREC.


It's an open source recommendation system.


It more or less just bolts on to whatever you have,


and then you set up those rules against that


to make those recommendations through all


that collaborative filtering.


And using that tool, you can then do these types of things.


So Zmanta is a great platform for native advertising


and for link building.


But what they do is they recommend content to people


to see in the bottom of sites like CNN.com and such.


But also, when they're writing blog posts,


it suggests content based on what they're writing.


So that's rule-based content recommendations.


You can do that, and then you can do rule-driven product


recommendations the same way Amazon does.


And you can also do this based on social media data.


So there's a component of Amazon where


you can log in with Facebook, and then it'll


pull your friends' interests in things


and then determine whether or not a given product is


something they'd be interested in.


And then you can also do prospect nurturing,


so triggering emails based on actions on the website.


And you can do that with Mandrill,


which is the API for MailChimp.


And if you use Mandrill, then you


can still use MailChimp's WYSIWYG editor.


Then MailGun is another option, but there's


no WYSIWYG editor.


And you can also use a tool called Lucky Orange.


So with Lucky Orange, you can watch user sessions.


Like, you can see a video of how they


went throughout your website.


And if you pass your browser fingerprint to the tool,


you now have a lot more measurement.


You can specifically look at a user


and how they interacted with your website


and then tie it back to other data.


So I've done enough of these speaking events


to know you're not going to do any of that.


So I made you something.


It's called Quantum Leap.


This is a free platform that I made for you guys


that you can install on your website


and get all the data that I've been talking about.


So as you do is you sign in with LinkedIn.


And you can set up organization alerts.


So what it'll do is, let's say, for example, you want to know


when Microsoft is on your website.


You set this up, and you'll get an email


when they come to your website.


So you can then look at what they look through


and then look at all the other data points


and do whatever else you want to do with that.


And it only takes one line of code.


It works just like your analytics platform.


But if you want to actually access the data,


it obviously takes a little more.


So there's two functions that you want to care about.


There's one called Quantum Leader.


And that one will just pull back all the data


I have on a given user.


And then there's a function called Save Email.


So if you capture an email address,


you send that back to me, then I get more data for you.


Now, you get the real-time lead communications


like I was talking about.


You get the email saying Microsoft is on your website.


If you have a tool like Olark or Lucky Orange, which


both have real-time chats, you can then


reach out to those people while they're on your website.


And then you can convince them to buy


whatever you're trying to buy.


It also gives you visitor analytics.


And I've just started this portion of it.


So it's just tracking page views and then tracks


when users get identified.


But I'm sure I'll end up doing something cooler with it soon.


So the use cases of that are endless.


You can do anything once you know who is on your website.


So what's the catch?


Why would I give you all this data for free, right?


I'm a marketer.


Of course I want something, right?


I need 1,000 sign-ups before I turn it on.


So there's like 1,300 people in this room?


Make it happen.


All right.


So here's what you should do right now.


You should set up a database.


And take this back to your developers.


You want to use a NoSQL database rather than a MySQL database.


MySQL is fine, but NoSQL is a lot easier


to use as far as the type of data you'll be collecting.


So go with that.


You want to install Quantum Lead.


You want to connect your data to Google Analytics,


like I was saying.


Custom variables.


Easy enough.


You want to install Lucky Orange.


So then you get more data on the user


and seeing their actual sessions.


And then you want to add dynamic functionality to your site.


And that sounds real easy to say,


but it's pretty difficult. Because depending


on how big the website is or whatever,


you have to ingrain this from the functional standpoint.


So you're going to have to have a lot of meetings


and do a lot of content strategy to plan this out.


But essentially, you want the experience


to update based on the different data points that you get.


And then you also want to be able to do triggered emails.


And then you want to prepare for automation.


So like I said, there's a lot of things that you can do here.


But you want to start small.


So maybe just a location-based personalization,


because that's relatively easy.


And then once you've seen some wins and improvements


in conversion from that, then you go with a bigger project.


And if you're doing things like recommendation systems,


you've got to be aware that there's something called the


cold start problem.


Because you don't have enough data on users


when you initially start out.


So you have to wait until you collect enough data to then do


effective recommendations.


And then of course, since there's actually


development required for this, it's going to take time.


But keep calm and keep coding.


That's all I got.


Thank you.


Hey, Faris.


You rock, man.


You rock.


I was feeling so dumb throughout that entire presentation.


So I'm glad you made that tool.


We're going to get 1,000 sign-ups.


We're going to hopefully tweet that link.


And we're going to retweet that link if you can.


Right?


Do it.


That's right.


We're going to publish a blog post.


We're going to retweet the heck out of that


over the next few days.


So we might have some time for Q&A.


But first, I believe we were going to share something


personal with you.


We have a video to show about what


you're going to be up to soon.


Yeah.


So obviously, I didn't rap today.


And a lot of people are like, why don't you rap?


Well, I have something for that.


I'm actually doing something that I


wanted to share with you guys.


So can we roll the footage?


This is Mike King, the world's only rapper


and digital marketer.


When he's not optimizing inbound marketing for forward thinking


companies, you'll find him rapping and lecturing


around the world on subjects from social justice


to digital marketing.


Mike's been just about everywhere,


except South America.


Mike wonders why that is and what the digital marketing


and music communities are up to there.


This is Peruvian-born marketer and globetrotter


Ingrid Arnold, CMO of Viventura in Berlin.


Ingrid knows that South America has


a super exciting digital marketing


community that is emerging and wants


the world to know about it.


When Ingrid tells Mike about the exciting developments happening


in places such as Brazil, Argentina, and Peru,


they come up with an idea.


They decide to create marketing globetrotters.


Marketing globetrotters will bring the digital marketing


community together through a series of free online marketing


meetups across the continent.


Online marketers will learn and share their knowledge


about increasing online visibility,


creating online brand communities, and more.


And Mike will have plenty of opportunities


to showcase and share his rap talents performing


at each event.


Best of all, all proceeds from voluntary donations


at each event will go to supporting local charitable


projects organized by vSocial.


This includes building vSocial centers


for children in vulnerable areas,


get the educational and social help they need to thrive.


But to do all this, Mike will need


to make his way through mountainous wilderness,


navigate his way across the Amazon River,


and try not to get lost in South America's bustling cities.


Will Mike ever want to leave South America,


or will he decide to start a new life there?


Find out how you could also be part of this adventure


at vventura.com slash marketing dash globetrotters.


Join Mike and Ingrid as they discover


the wonders of South America and meet


the community along the way.


What we're doing is that, and we're also


having a contest where someone can come with us.


So if you check out that URL, you


can find out what it would take to come with us.


And we're just trying to do something cool.


So yeah, let's get into Q&A.


That's awesome.


Uh, do we have anybody at the microphones right now?


No, I have a suggestion.


Are you going to the pub crawl tonight?


You know it.


OK.


Let's tell people that the pub crawl does not


start at any particular place.


You can start at any of the pub crawls.


We want to thank our partners who are sponsoring that,


sponsoring the drinks, all the food.


A lot of the speakers like Mike will be here tonight.


If you have any questions for him,


you can ask him then and wear them down.


And Mike, thank you for bringing the awesomeness today.


It's been incredible.


Thank you.


Woo!


MozCon 2015 - 16 - Reaching Critical Mass: 150 Active Members with Rich Millington

Thank you. I feel so loved. Thank you. So I want to begin by taking you back to 2006.


And back in 2006, one of the things that everyone was really interested in was Second Life.


Do you remember Second Life? It was a virtual world where you go and build your own homes


and things like that. And there were marketers back then that were saying something really


interesting that if your organization wasn't on Second Life today, you might not have an


organization tomorrow. And there were some organizations that thought that was smart


advice. And so they began to build stores in Second Life. Adidas is my favorite example


of this. And I think the plan was this, that in this virtual world, your virtual character


could go into a virtual store and buy virtual shoes for their virtual feet. Now there's


only one problem with this idea. Can anyone guess what it is? It's virtually awful. No


one ever went to this store. This was about as busy as this store got. And about six months


after launch, they quietly took it down. And this got me thinking, how many of these online


community efforts actually succeed? How many organizations that try to launch an online


community actually succeed? And so I began to try and work this out. The first thing


I did is I went to the platform vendors and I asked them, excuse me, how many of your


clients actually succeed in building a community? And they wouldn't tell me. I asked other organizations


that were out there. And again, they wouldn't tell me. And for years I was stuck on this.


But I kept getting these notifications that organization X has launched an online community.


Organization Y has launched an online community. And then it occurred to me that you could


just search for organizations that have announced that they've launched an online community


and you get a massive list of these. In fact, you get a list of 957 organizations that we


found that had announced they had launched an online community. So me and an intern who


no longer speaks to me began clicking on every single one of these links to try and find


out how many of them have at least 100 actively participating members. And after a long week,


we finally had our answer. Ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed fellow inbound marketers, it is


my great honor to present to you today the state of our communities. Out of 957 organizations


that had announced they had launched an online community, can you imagine how many were successful?


Can I get a drum roll, please? Just do your thing. Five. That's not 5%. That's five. As


in I can count it on my hand. One, two, three, four, five. That's five. As in we're doing


something really horrifically terribly wrong. Five. So what's going on here? Why are we


so bad today at building online communities? Well, if you look at how the approach comes


about, it's always the same. Step one, the organization will have a big expensive launch.


You have to have a nice platform and a massive push when you begin. Step two, they'll have


a big promotional push. They'll contact people on Facebook. They'll contact people on Twitter.


They'll use their mailing list. They'll push it as much as they possibly can. And then


comes step three, the plummet. They reach a point where they push it and push it and


push it and they can't promote it to any more members. There's no one else that they can


reach to and tell them about this community. And then the community quickly dies. That's


a high watermark of most community efforts. And the community is then taken down. In 2008,


Dell launched a community called the Digital Nomad Community. Now the idea of this is that


if you have one of those cheap laptops they had, then you can go and you can work from


anywhere in the world. This, I think, was one of the biggest community launches I have


ever seen in my life. And this is from the patron saying of social media, Dell at the


time. And I think this launched around March 2008. And by the following November, it was


dead and it was quietly taken down. Now if organizations like Dell sometimes make mistakes,


how many successful communities can we really have? And when I began telling people about


this, they always responded the same way, which is, well, I can think of a lot of successful


online communities. I can think of lots of organizations that have a successful online


community. But when you begin looking at these, you start to notice something really interesting.


They tend to have at least one of three things. The first is that they have millions of angry


customers. It's no surprise that some of the most successful types of online communities


are those that have a lot of angry customers that need somewhere to complain and ask questions


about the products and services that aren't working well. Two, they have a massive budget.


Now I know some of you don't have a big budget because we did a survey of people on your


Facebook page today or a few weeks ago. And we found that between, I think it's 40 percent


of you have a budget of between one and ten thousand. Thirty-five percent of you ticked


the box that said budget ha, ha, ha, ha. That's how much budget we had to spend in our communities.


Or third, they have a community that's so uniquely interesting, so engaging that it's


just going to pop up around the product or service anyway. So when Google develops these


self-driving car, they're going to have a crazy popular online community simply because


of how interesting it is. Which might mean that for most of us, our community efforts


are doomed. That was pretty much it. I was worried about time, but. Actually, there is


hope. Of course there is hope. In fact, there's a group of people who are incredibly good


at building online communities. There's one specific group of people who have been building


communities for generations. Can anyone guess who this is? Just shout out your answer. Yes,


but I actually meant the hobbyists. The crazy people that build communities around whatever


unique hobby they have. These people are insanely good at building communities. They have an


incredibly high success rate. So it stands to reason today that if we want to have more


successful online communities, we have to stop doing the typical organization big launch


approach and start copying what these successful people do. And when you start looking at that,


you start noticing something really interesting. The first one is that they begin with their


founding members. Notice here, we're not talking about your first members of the community.


You're talking about the founders. What do you think is more motivating to get someone


to join in a new community? To become a member of a community that doesn't exist yet or to


help found a member or to help found a community? And it's here you begin to notice the biggest


split between what failures do and what successes do. And can anyone guess what that might be?


What is the single thing that successful community builders do differently? Would you like a


clue? That's right. They invite their friends to join the community. They don't invite strangers


to join the community. They invite their friends. They don't invite people on their mailing


list, on their Twitter following. They invite their friends to join the community. So I'm


going to need to make sure that we all understand this because it's incredibly important. Do


you think you should invite people from your Twitter following or your Facebook page to


join your community to get it going? Yes or no? No? No. Do you think that you should have


your random strangers, people that you don't really know, do a massive promotional push


and try to invite those people to join a community? No? Or imagine if you've just discovered you


have a long lost twin brother who you've never met and you finally summon up the courage


to reach out to him. Should you invite him to join the community? Hell no. You begin


a community with your friends. And we're not just talking about small organizations here.


De-Delicious Mums, a community of I think 350,000 members. They have a revenue of $4 million


a year. Begin with their friends. Rover.com based here in Seattle I think have 40,000


new members every week. They have millions of dollars in investment. But even here they


begin with their friends. The easiest way, the best way, the most successful way to get


a community off the ground is to begin with people that you know. People that are already


in that sector. People that you have befriended. And this by far is the biggest mistake that


we're making today. And we can get this right. What it means is that in the beginning we


need to have a founder of that community. Not a nameless brand entity, but a clear founder


of that community. And if you don't have this, if you don't have that credibility to be that


founder, then the very first thing you have to do is to get that credibility. And the


way we go about that is what we call the CHIP process. As in C-H-I-P. Not french fries,


CHIP. So that means first you create the right content. And I'm not talking about your personal


opinions or anecdotal examples. The easiest way to get credibility amongst that group


is to create content that that group actually wants to get. So things like the latest summary


of what's going on in that field, data research, things like this. This will get you instant


credibility amongst the audience. Or two, host events. It's worth putting a thousand


dollars behind the local bar and inviting everyone you know in that sector to come because


then you get an instant credibility of hosting this sort of group. Or three, interview experts


in your field. If you want the attention of every expert in your space, then interview


every expert in your space. The same people that won't give you the time of day, if you


ask them for a favor or advice, will give you over an hour of their day if you ask them


for an interview. And fourth, participate. You have to participate. You have to be out


there meeting members, having coffee with members, because to get a community off the


ground you don't need that many people. But you need to have that small group in place


for it to happen. Otherwise it's not going to succeed. So you want to be creating a list


of 250 prospective founding members and then have at least 50 of them that you can get


to interact with each other. Now one of the great things about this approach is that you


can see if it's not working. You can see if it's not working before you've invested a


lot of money into it. So if you can't get 50 people to interact with each other, then


do not build a community. Either the community is not ready for you or you're not ready for


the community. But let's imagine we've done that. Let's imagine we have 50,000 members


of that community. What do we want to do next? Well the biggest thing that's going to influence


whether someone participates in a community or not is how interested they are in that


topic. Now the problem with this is that too many organizations make a community about


themselves and they quickly realize they are not Beyonce. They quickly realize they are


not the kind of person or organization that people want to spend their spare time talking


about them. They might have loyal customers, they might have people that visit them very


often but they don't want to spend their time talking about them. Or they make a community


about their products or their services. Now the problem here is that I don't know about


you, but if I'm building a community for my clients, I don't want just my customers to


be able to participate in that community. If I don't have millions of angry customers,


that doesn't help me much. But I want my competitors' customers to be able to participate. I want


to have anyone interested in that topic that's able to participate. I want to have anyone


that has an interest or is new to that field to be able to participate in my community.


Or three, they build a community around what they think people want to do. I've been doing


this around seven or eight years now and I counted last week, we have been approached


with the exact same idea 13 times. And the idea is this, hey Rich, I'm going to start


a community of the top financial investors to join the community and I'm going to charge


them to exchange stock tips with one another. Now can you imagine why this idea does not


work? If you're a top financial investor today, what is the one thing in the world you don't


want to share with other top financial investors? But yet this is what happens again and again.


We try and guess what members want to do. So there are four types of concepts that tend


to work incredibly well. The first one is to build a community around a problem that


members know they have. So the top financial professionals in the world might not want


to exchange stock tips with each other. Think about it, if they're at the very top, then


they probably think they're doing a good job of that. But maybe, just maybe there's something


else they want to talk about. Perhaps having a good work-life balance. Perhaps a home designer,


perhaps buying great homes, whatever. But there'll be some problem that they know they


have. A couple of years ago, we had a teaching software company and they approached us because


they were struggling to build a community. And they had tried a couple of things already.


First, they had tried to build a community for the teachers that they're trying to reach


to help each other use the software that they had developed. And you know what the teachers


said? We don't have time. Then they tried to build a community around just teaching


in a more general sense. And can you imagine what the teachers said? We don't have time


to do this. And can you imagine what this company is missing? What do you think they're


missing here? Time. So when we came along, our approach was to build a community for


teachers to share their time-saving tips. Now this is a concept that works. This is


a community that today has over 1,200 members, 800 of which have logged in within the last


month. So you want to build a community, possibly, around a problem that your members know they


have. Second, you can build a community around an opportunity that we believe exists. So


maybe in search there's opportunities in other search engines or disruption like Ran was


talking about yesterday. But this also works incredibly well if you sell a product or a


service that isn't perhaps that interesting. Imagine if you sell a washing machine. No


one here sells a washing machine, right? That's a shame. This would have been a terrific example


for you. So it's really hard to make washing machines that interesting. This is about as


good as we could possibly get. Because people aren't going to want to spend their spare


time talking about washing machines. But maybe they want to talk about their housework tips


or housework stories or things like that. But that's good. But surely there's a bigger


opportunity here, one that takes advantage of new trends in this particular space. So


if this was me, I'd build a community for people to eliminate, automate, and delegate


their housework. I think a community concept like this is going to be far more powerful.


And we have to be getting these concepts right. The third one is passion. I'm not going to


spend a lot of time talking about this. But a good example would be TechCrunch. So TechCrunch


has a community for people to learn more about the startup scene. People simply to learn


more about that field. The reason I don't want to spend that much time talking about


it is that most organizations think their customers are way more interested in that


sector than they really are. And finally, status. There's a lot of great


communities out there that are based around the status of being a member. So people join


because they get access to an exclusive group or they want to be a member of an exclusive


group. If I was running, say, a marketing or SEO agency today and trying to start a


community, you might want to look at having a community for the top inbound marketers


or maybe a double the numbers club. And by the way, it's often a lot easier to get people


to join a community if you call it something else. It's often a lot easier to get people


to join a community if you call it a club or a collaborative. You can change the words


to whatever you like. And each of them has different kinds of associations that people


might want to join. So if you cannot get this right concept that


takes off, if you can't test this first and find something that works, do not continue


building a community. Okay, number three is the platform stage. There


is nowhere, nowhere where we are worse at building a community than when it comes to


building a community platform. The reason why so many communities have so many lurkers


today is because we build communities designed for people to lurk, designed for people to


read. I want you to imagine your favorite bar, your favorite club or pub or whatever.


And before you get into the room where you can chat to anyone else, you have to go through


three separate rooms. In the first room will be someone that checks that you have the right


user name and the right password to get in. In the second room will be someone that tells


you about the history of the bar, someone that tells you about what's going on in the


bar. And in the third room will be some sort of news about the drinks that they're selling.


And this is all before you can see if your friends are in that bar. As crazy as this


sounds, this is exactly our approach to building community platforms today. We are terrible,


terrible at building community platforms today. Now, if you want to have a more successful


type of platform, we have to stop copying the examples like this, examples that might


look good, examples that might impress the boss or anyone else, because you can't see


where to participate in these kinds of communities. Instead, we have to look at what are the most


successful active community platforms out there today. When you think about it, like


a Reddit here, it might not be the most attractive platform in the world, but look how much activity


it has. It's a very ugly platform, but it works. Hacker News, look at how much activity


it has and how ugly it is. And this goes on and on. There's so many examples of successful