#004: The Secret, Hidden World of Book Publishing Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe on iTunes In this episode of the UnPodcast, we talked about the pressures of the book publishing industry, standard advances, and why publishers no longer hold the keys. We also discussed both ethical and unethical ways to hit the bestsellers lists, and why because of them the term, “bestseller” has lost much of its meaning. Other topics include: Why I was sent to the special ed office when I was in high school How Alison makes my rants and rambles into something cohesive How books on Kindle and Audible sync How to turn 6 printed pages into 2 The average number of business books published each year How payola is alive and well in the book industry Why authors need a team Why I do book talks instead of book signings And so much more. . . Items mentioned in this episode QR Codes Kill Kittens Kindle Matchbook Audible Clean Print Wiley Publishing ResultsSource Amazon affili
http://ravensiege.com/seo/004-the-secret-hidden-world-of-book-publishing/Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Growing Sales Without a Sales Team: The Power of Distribution
Early on, we made the decision not to grow a sales team at Moz. We re not anti-sales, per se, it s just that it does t fit our culture. We believe in practicing what we preach—inbound marketing—not interruption selling. Consequently, that provides a bit of a problem for a B2B SaaS business like Moz. Growing through traditional inbound channels is immensely powerful, but at a certain scale, maintaining linearity in growth through content, social media, and search becomes difficult. Working with the role of Business Development at Moz, it s my job to find those channels that will introduce growth at scale in a predictive way. Which brings me to distribution. Just over two years ago when I started at Moz, we began to ponder a simple question: If we offered an extended free trial on Moz (45, 60, 90, or 120 days) to select partners, could it move the needle on growth? Before we d be able to answer that question, however, we needed a few assets. The first was what we call a partner page
http://ravensiege.com/seo/growing-sales-without-a-sales-team-the-power-of-distribution/3 SEO Nuggets Under Your Nose
Tweet Tweet I was rummaging around in Google webmaster tools yesterday scratching up the surface of search queries like a chicken looking for a tasty grub. I found one, a 4500 searches a month keyword that we are not ranking for. The search queries tool in WMT provides you with the last 90 days of search data related to your site. Unlike Google Analytics it will not only clicks to your site but also how many times you actually appeared in search. The last couple of weeks I have been watching a ridiculous phrase rise in our data; Video Marketing SEO. Read yesterday’s post to see why I think it is ridiculous. It occurred to me though most people won’t go through these steps to find those tasty keyword morsels adrift in the search soup. Here’s what I do under Search Queries in Webmaster tools. 1. Initial Selection Google gives us an impressions column. It is notoriously unreliable though. Look at the numbers below, Today s SEO Keywords yesterday SEO Melbourne was 4,500 and today
http://ravensiege.com/seo/3-seo-nuggets-under-your-nose/Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm Ten Years Ago
Back in September, Google announced that they had started using an algorithm that rewrites queries submitted by searchers which they had given the code name “Hummingbird.” At the time, I was writing a blog post about a patent from Google that seemed like it might be very related to the update because the focus was upon re-writing long and complex queries, while paying more attention to all the words within those queries. I called the post, The Google Hummingbird Patent because the patent seemed to be such a good match. Image from Dr. Bill May from the US Forest Service on a page about wildflowers Google has been granted a number of patents about query re-writing, sometimes also referred to as query expansion or query broadening, which try to make it more likely that the search engines will return results closer to what a searcher is looking for, even if they might not necessarily use the best choice of keywords to find the information that will fill their needs. I had also recentl
http://ravensiege.com/seo/googles-hummingbird-algorithm-ten-years-ago/Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal
Introduction A few months back, I wrote an article on Moz all about a penalty our web agency received for unnatural links pointing to our website. At first, this was a bit of a shock to the system, but since then, we ve learned so much about Google s webmaster guidelines and we ve helped lots of companies get their businesses back on track and remove manual penalties associated with their websites. What did we get hit for? Cutting a long story short, the main reason we were hit with a manual penalty was for adding followed anchor text into the bottom of clients websites that said Web Design Yorkshire by Pinpoint Designs (both web design yorkshire and Pinpoint Designs linked to our website). At the time, we were just doing this out of habit, but we never varied anchor text, always had followed links and we were basically violating Google s quality guidelines. After a lot of work and research, we managed to remove the penalty from our website and since then have worked on lots of other
http://ravensiege.com/seo/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal/Monday, October 14, 2013
5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-12/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-11/Sunday, October 13, 2013
5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-9/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-10/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-7/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-8/Saturday, October 12, 2013
5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-4/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-5/Friday, October 11, 2013
5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-2/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO – Whiteboard Friday
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-whiteboard-friday-3/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo/5 Dos and Don’ts of International SEO
Hello Moz fans. It s a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic. The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it s not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is lang
http://ravensiege.com/seo/5-dos-and-donts-of-international-seo-2/Friday, October 4, 2013
Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter-6/Taking Advantage of Google’s Bias Toward Hyper-Fresh Content – Whiteboard Friday
Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to talk a little bit about Google s strange and overwhelming in some cases bias to fresh content. I want to give a shout out to Glen Allsopp who had talked about this a little bit and written some blog posts exposing some of Google s priorities around freshness or what feel like priorities for them around freshness. Google s been biasing to fresh content, trying to show more and more fresh results, recently published results in their SERPs for several years now, but it s gotten particularly strong in the last 12 months in certain sectors. I think Glen had noticed it very strongly in some of the sectors that he was watching for some of his clients. We have seen it in some places very heavily, in other places not as much. But you can definitely feel it. There are places like Shakespeare plays. This is a search result that a few years ago, even 6 to 12 months ago probably you would not have seen much fr
http://ravensiege.com/seo/taking-advantage-of-googles-bias-toward-hyper-fresh-content-whiteboard-friday-4/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-9/Taking Advantage of Google’s Bias Toward Hyper-Fresh Content – Whiteboard Friday
Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to talk a little bit about Google s strange and overwhelming in some cases bias to fresh content. I want to give a shout out to Glen Allsopp who had talked about this a little bit and written some blog posts exposing some of Google s priorities around freshness or what feel like priorities for them around freshness. Google s been biasing to fresh content, trying to show more and more fresh results, recently published results in their SERPs for several years now, but it s gotten particularly strong in the last 12 months in certain sectors. I think Glen had noticed it very strongly in some of the sectors that he was watching for some of his clients. We have seen it in some places very heavily, in other places not as much. But you can definitely feel it. There are places like Shakespeare plays. This is a search result that a few years ago, even 6 to 12 months ago probably you would not have seen much fr
http://ravensiege.com/seo/taking-advantage-of-googles-bias-toward-hyper-fresh-content-whiteboard-friday-3/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-8/Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter-5/Taking Advantage of Google’s Bias Toward Hyper-Fresh Content – Whiteboard Friday
Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to talk a little bit about Google s strange and overwhelming in some cases bias to fresh content. I want to give a shout out to Glen Allsopp who had talked about this a little bit and written some blog posts exposing some of Google s priorities around freshness or what feel like priorities for them around freshness. Google s been biasing to fresh content, trying to show more and more fresh results, recently published results in their SERPs for several years now, but it s gotten particularly strong in the last 12 months in certain sectors. I think Glen had noticed it very strongly in some of the sectors that he was watching for some of his clients. We have seen it in some places very heavily, in other places not as much. But you can definitely feel it. There are places like Shakespeare plays. This is a search result that a few years ago, even 6 to 12 months ago probably you would not have seen much fr
http://ravensiege.com/seo/taking-advantage-of-googles-bias-toward-hyper-fresh-content-whiteboard-friday-2/Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter-4/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-7/Taking Advantage of Google’s Bias Toward Hyper-Fresh Content – Whiteboard Friday
Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to talk a little bit about Google s strange and overwhelming in some cases bias to fresh content. I want to give a shout out to Glen Allsopp who had talked about this a little bit and written some blog posts exposing some of Google s priorities around freshness or what feel like priorities for them around freshness. Google s been biasing to fresh content, trying to show more and more fresh results, recently published results in their SERPs for several years now, but it s gotten particularly strong in the last 12 months in certain sectors. I think Glen had noticed it very strongly in some of the sectors that he was watching for some of his clients. We have seen it in some places very heavily, in other places not as much. But you can definitely feel it. There are places like Shakespeare plays. This is a search result that a few years ago, even 6 to 12 months ago probably you would not have seen much fr
http://ravensiege.com/seo/taking-advantage-of-googles-bias-toward-hyper-fresh-content-whiteboard-friday/Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter-3/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-6/Thursday, October 3, 2013
What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-5/Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter-2/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-4/Operation Clean Air: Clearing Up Misconceptions of Yelp’s Review Filter
Last week, the New York Attorney General s Operation Clean Turf fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for writing fake reviews on behalf of their clients. The case sets a laudable precedent not only for the future of local search, but for digital marketing more broadly. While the amount of the fines is hardly Earth-shattering, the outcome of this operation should give pause to any SEO or reputation-management company considering quick-and-dirty, underhanded tactics to boost their clients rankings, improve their clients reputations, or launch negative attacks on competitors. In the wake of this settlement, however, a wave of media coverage and a study by researchers at the Harvard Business School have clouded the reality of Yelp s review filter—already poorly understood by typical business owners—even further. In this piece I hope to dispel four misconceptions that it would be easy to conclude from these recent publications. 1. Most aggressive review filter ≠ most successful rev
http://ravensiege.com/seo/operation-clean-air-clearing-up-misconceptions-of-yelps-review-filter/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-3/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base-2/What I Learned from Scraping SEOmoz’s Active User Base
Many moons ago, when Moz was SEOmoz, I had the idea to scrape all its publicly available profile data on active users just to see what I could learn about the community. Quantitative market research is an incredibly powerful method to quickly grab insights on a brand s users. Using those insights, we can develop strong content strategies and link-building campaigns, as well as develop competitive insights. What easier way than scraping the data from a brand s user profiles? In Soviet iAcquire, the web crawl you. Oh, you may have heard of Gary and Cogswell, the Russian-coded robots that escaped the Ministry of Education and Science and sought asylum in iRank (our homegrown targeting and reporting technology for scaled content marketing). They were originally assigned some very menial tasks, but I ve since reprogrammed them to aid us in better marketing. They are here to lend a hand to their idol, Roger Mozbot, in the hunt for Red October. As the Russian saying goes, Many hands make lig
http://ravensiege.com/seo/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base/Wednesday, October 2, 2013
#002: Why You Shouldn’t Leverage Disasters on Social Media
#002: Why You Shouldn’t Leverage Disasters on Social Media Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe on iTunes In this episode of the UnPodcast, we talked about double standards, guilt, and shaming in social media, and the right way for charities to use social media to support their cause. Other topics include: The brouhaha over Lean In’s posting for a highly skilled intern, for no compensation The ins and outs of voluntary slave labor Why our message has to be consistent, especially on the Internet Why trying to be cool in marketing is almost as bad as trying to be funny Leveraging likes the wrong way on Facebook Why data is dangerous A huge tipping point for Twitter when it comes to social injustice Why insurance gets a bad name Why you should shut up or help The benefits of hashtags without brand names on Twitter Shaming and Tweetathons How Scott has become what he hates on Twitter And so much more. . . Items mentioned in this episode Lean In Video provided
http://ravensiege.com/seo/002-why-you-shouldnt-leverage-disasters-on-social-media/The Future of Search: 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Released
Every two years, Moz surveys over 100 top industry professionals to compile our biennial Search Engine Ranking Factors. For 2013, we ve supplemented the survey with real-world correlation data from a scientific examination of over 17,000 keyword search results by Dr. Matt Peters and his data science team. We ve released some of the 2013 data previously, but not the full set until now. So with great pleasure, I present the complete results of this year s survey and correlation data: 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Why do we call it ranking factors? Google claims to use over 200 signals in its search algorithm. While we don t know what exactly these signals are, it s helpful to examine high-ranking pages so that we can begin to understand the characteristic of pages search engines like to reward. This can give us a hint as to the ranking factors the search engines actually use. Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint. Edward Tufte For example, if the correlation data shows
http://ravensiege.com/seo/the-future-of-search-2013-search-engine-ranking-factors-released/The Future of Search: 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Now Live
Every two years, Moz surveys over 100 top industry professionals to compile our biennial Search Engine Ranking Factors. For 2013, we ve supplemented the survey with real-world correlation data from a scientific examination of over 17,000 keyword search results by Dr. Matt Peters and his data science team. We ve released some of the 2013 data previously, but not the full set until now. So with great pleasure, I present the complete results of this year s survey and correlation data: 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Why do we call it ranking factors? Google claims to use over 200 signals in its search algorithm. While we don t know what exactly these signals are, it s helpful to examine high-ranking pages so that we can begin to understand the characteristic of pages search engines like to reward. This can give us a hint as to the ranking factors the search engines actually use. Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint. Edward Tufte For example, if the correlation data shows
http://ravensiege.com/seo/the-future-of-search-2013-search-engine-ranking-factors-now-live/Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Beers, Blokes & Business Launch
Tweet Tweet Yesterday I wrote a post about a new podcast I’m involved with called Beers, Blokes & Business. I used the post in today’s video as an example of how to simply setup Authorship and get a post ranked really quickly. Well it took over 7 minutes in this case, which I think is a little slow. The launch party for the podcast is next week with only a few tickets remaining. Rank Speed Is Proportional To Competition Usually when you publish something in WordPress, Google will crawl it almost immediately. If the title of the post, in yesterday’s case “Beers, Blokes & Business” is not highly competitive you can usually rank pretty fast for it. For instance my PBEVENT post ranked no.1 in seconds because it was not that competitive. As soon as you get a little competition though Google slows down ranking your page I have seen this time and time again. When I wrote my series of posts back in July on SEO Consultant Melbourne and even as recently as a couple of days ago on my
http://ravensiege.com/seo/beers-blokes-business-launch/Your New Sales Cycle: Optimizing for the Ultimate Moment of Truth
Search is a natural step in the discovery process. In a web-based world, search engines offer a lens into a qualified and structured view to help online consumers focus and make informed decisions. With Google dominating search, marketers concentrated on improving search ranking through tried and true techniques to ensure that what they were marketing earned a coveted position in the likely search results a customer might consider clicking. Search is only part of the story now. The experiences that people have, and in turn share, have created a powerful collective repository that is indexed and tapped every minute of every day—mostly outside of Google. The importance of search engine marketing is fundamental to the discovery process. And, this is a world that still thrives today even though popular conversations among businesses and marketers center on social and mobile media as the next big thing. There s notable truth in the hype surrounding social and mobile of course. With over
http://ravensiege.com/seo/your-new-sales-cycle-optimizing-for-the-ultimate-moment-of-truth/The Ultimate Moment of Truth: Moving Toward Shared Experiences
Search is a natural step in the discovery process. In a web-based world, search engines offer a lens into a qualified and structured view to help online consumers focus and make informed decisions. With Google dominating search, marketers concentrated on improving search ranking through tried and true techniques to ensure that what they were marketing earned a coveted position in the likely search results a customer might consider clicking. Search is only part of the story now. The experiences that people have, and in turn share, have created a powerful collective repository that is indexed and tapped every minute of every day—mostly outside of Google. The importance of search engine marketing is fundamental to the discovery process. And, this is a world that still thrives today even though popular conversations among businesses and marketers center on social and mobile media as the next big thing. There s notable truth in the hype surrounding social and mobile of course. With over
http://ravensiege.com/seo/the-ultimate-moment-of-truth-moving-toward-shared-experiences/Monday, September 30, 2013
Beers Blokes & Business
Tweet Tweet I was asked a few months back to take part in a new podcast called Beers Blokes & Business. It is the Beer child of Sean Callanan aka @sportsgeek. The basic premise of the show is a bunch of blokes talking business while sampling some fine amber ale. I’ve only contributed to a few episodes so far but it has been a lot of fun and I’ve learned a few things along the way. It’s a pretty relaxed podcast and the aim for it’s length is about the time for an average commute so you can listen to it on your way to work. I’ve been involved in a lot of online shows over the years, The Internet Old Boys was my first, The F Word which was a film review show (got to interview Sean William Scott #bragging rights), The Netboat which was the world’s first online comedy series, my own weekly video and now BBB. BBB out of all the shows I can honestly say contains the most beer… the others were mainly shiraz. Some Beer from Beer Blokes Business The Beer At the start of each recor
http://ravensiege.com/seo/beers-blokes-business/SEO Is Not Provided?
Tweet Tweet Amazing that you get so many hits on (not provided) huh? Back in 2011 Google stopped providing the search phrases from users that were logged into Google and in a secure https session. Last week they announced that they are extending that “security” to pretty much everyone… unless you’re an advertiser. The reason for this they say is “user protection”, however if you are using adwords you will still get the keyword search data, for some reason those users don’t need protection. There are many theories circulating about why Google is doing this but as a search marketer, what does it mean for you? For ecommerce sites it really sucks. No longer will you be able to see what keywords coming from organic search are delivering sales. You will now only see that in adwords data. Nor will you be able to see any sort of sensible volume around specific keywords. If you are not an advertiser, get to know your search queries in Webmaster Tools. Google is still providing ke
http://ravensiege.com/seo/seo-is-not-provided/Blogger Outreach – What Do They Think About SEOs?
Have you ever wondered why bloggers didn t reply to your last outreach email? Why they refused to link to your shiny new infographic, or what they really think about SEOs? I conducted a 26 question survey with a sample group of bloggers to help digital marketers construct better outreach pitches and give bloggers the opportunity to voice their opinions. The feedback might shock some of you; I hope you re ready. Disclaimer: Due to the nature of the questions, and in the interest of protecting the respondents, the full data set, exact sample size, and respondents blog URLs will not be made public. Survey information: There are fewer than 100 bloggers in the sample, mostly from the parenting / food niche No demographic requirements to participate, however the bloggers are largely from the UK and US Survey format: Google docs forms, with a mixture of multiple choice questions and text boxes Important: The sample is not representative of all bloggers, or bloggers within the UK, US, food or
http://ravensiege.com/seo/blogger-outreach-what-do-they-think-about-seos/Sunday, September 29, 2013
Comment on The Google Hummingbird Patent? by Bill Slawski
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/comment-on-the-google-hummingbird-patent-by-bill-slawski-4/Comment on The Google Hummingbird Patent? by Bill Slawski
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/comment-on-the-google-hummingbird-patent-by-bill-slawski-3/Comment on The Google Hummingbird Patent? by Sean
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/comment-on-the-google-hummingbird-patent-by-sean/Comment on The Google Hummingbird Patent? by Bill Slawski
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/comment-on-the-google-hummingbird-patent-by-bill-slawski-2/Comment on The Google Hummingbird Patent? by Bill Slawski
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/comment-on-the-google-hummingbird-patent-by-bill-slawski/SEO in Melbourne
Tweet Tweet Back in 2005 I got to no.1 for the phrase “SEO Melbourne”. It’s a pretty tough phrase as you can imagine. Since then we have stayed on page 1 but the last several months we have been below the fold. I’m fairly sure we’re the only company since 2005 that has remained on page 1 consistently *pumps chest*. Our first drop from the no.1 spot happened when we moved from our old Joomla website which launched as a Mambo site back in 2003 and I just kept upgrading because I was so petrified of losing our no.1 spot for SEO Melbourne. Don’t get me wrong I would much prefer a wordpress site to a Joomla one these days. The reason for our drop was complicated but basically I think Google recalculated where it should rank the new site and we dropped. With the Penguin and Panda updates we have always done well and moved up a spot or two. A lot of other SEOs though have not been as lucky. At the bottom for SEO Melbourne Who looks for SEO Melbourne? In my experience it’s peopl
http://ravensiege.com/seo/seo-in-melbourne/Friday, September 27, 2013
Solving the Sub-Domain Equation: Predicting Traffic and Value when Merging Sub-Domains
To sub-domain or not to sub-domain, that is the question. Should you keep your content on separate sub-domains or the same domain? If I do merge my sub-domains, will I gain or lose traffic? How much? Since my first days in SEO back in 2004, the sub-folder vs. sub-domain debate has echoed through nearly every site architecture discussion in which I have participated. It seems trivial in many respects that we would focus so intently on what essentially boils down to the ordering of words in a URL, especially given that www. itself is a sub-domain. However, for a long time, there has been good reason to consider the question vary carefully. Today I am writing about the problem in general, and I propose a programmatic strategy for answering the sub-domain/sub-folder debate. For the purposes of this article, let s assume there is a company named Example Business that sells baseball cards, baseball jerseys and baseball hats. They have two choices for setting up their site architecture. They
http://ravensiege.com/seo/solving-the-sub-domain-equation-predicting-traffic-and-value-when-merging-sub-domains/The Google Hummingbird Patent?
Google introduced a new algorithm by the name of Hummingbird to the world today at the garage where Google started as a business, during a celebration of Google’s 15th Birthday. Google doesn’t appear to have replaced previous signals such as PageRank or many of the other signals that they use to rank pages. The announcement of the new algorithm told us that Google actually started using Hummingbird a number of weeks ago, and that it potentially impacts around 90% of all searches. It’s being presented as a query expansion or broadening approach which can better understand longer natural language queries, like the ones that people might speak instead of shorter keyword matching queries which someone might type into a search box. For example, the kind of query where it might potentially work best upon could be something like [What is the best place to find and eat Chicago deep dish style pizza?], where Google might use synonym and substitute query rules in combination with analyzin
http://ravensiege.com/seo/the-google-hummingbird-patent/Setting Goals (Not Tools) as the Foundation of Your Marketing – Whiteboard Friday
Hey there, Moz community! I m so excited to be here with you today. I wanted to share something with you that has been really powerful for the businesses we ve been working with in the last year or so about building community. It s a concept that we call goals not tools, and it works in this pyramid format where you start with your goals, you move on to KPIs, you develop a strategy, you execute that strategy, and then you analyze your data. And this is something that has been really powerful and helped businesses really grow. So I m going to walk you through it here. We start down at the bottom with goals. So the deal with goals is that you want to make sure that you re setting goals for your entire business, not just for SEO or social media or content marketing, because you re trying to grow your whole business. So keep your focus there. Then once you develop your goals, and those goals might be to improve customer communication or you want to become a thought leader. Whatever your g
http://ravensiege.com/seo/setting-goals-not-tools-as-the-foundation-of-your-marketing-whiteboard-friday/Thursday, September 26, 2013
On Our Wait-List? You Get a Moz Analytics!
Looks Like You re Not Logged In To add a comment or give something a thumbs up/down, you must either login or sign up for a new account. Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MozBlog/~3/ME3hSo7kvfU/moz-analytics-wait-list-announcementOn Our Wait-List? You Get a Moz Analytics!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MozBlog/~3/ME3hSo7kvfU/moz-analytics-wait-list-announcementhttp://feeds.feedburner.com/mozblogMoz BlogMoz, a Seattle-based search engine optimization company, serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide, providing education, tools, resources and paid services. The post On Our Wait-List? You Get a Moz Analytics! appeared first on Website, SEO and Social Media Management Company.
http://ravensiege.com/seo/on-our-wait-list-you-get-a-moz-analytics/Improving Search Rank by Optimizing Your Time to First Byte
Back in August, Zoompf published newly uncovered research findings examining the effect of web performance on Google s search rankings. Working with Matt Peters from Moz, we tested the performance of over 100,000 websites returned in the search results for 2000 different search queries. In that study, we found a clear correlation between a faster time to first byte (TTFB) and a higher search engine rank. While it could not be outright proven that decreasing TTFB directly caused an increasing search rank, there was enough of a correlation to at least warrant some further discussion of the topic. The TTFB metric captures how long it takes your browser to receive the first byte of a response from a web server when you request a particular website URL. In the graph captured below from our research results, you can see websites with a faster TTFB in general ranked more highly than websites with a slower one. We found this to be true not only for general searches with one or two keywords, b
http://ravensiege.com/seo/improving-search-rank-by-optimizing-your-time-to-first-byte/Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Kill It on Facebook by Being TAGFEE
Last month, I presented a Mozinar on Deconstructing a Niche Market. Much to my surprise, the Q&A session focused almost entirely on my experience using Facebook as a niche marketing channel. It s true that Facebook is a dynamic and oft-misunderstood creature, especially in marketing. When building a strategy with long-term sustainability in mind, it s important to avoid relying on any one source of traffic. Any channel can be fickle, and Facebook has certainly proven to be no exception. That being said, Facebook still represents the largest share of the social space, and is at least worth considering for businesses looking to diversify their channel marketing portfolio, be it niche-targeted or otherwise. Just 9 months after we decided to give the platform the old college try, Facebook has become a substantial traffic source for our B2B business. As I mentioned in the Mozinar, our business has spent the last nine months developing our Facebook channel. As a result, we ve seen traffic f
http://ravensiege.com/seo/kill-it-on-facebook-by-being-tagfee/Tuesday, September 24, 2013
SEO Starts Here
Tweet Tweet In last week’s post I discussed how I’m putting together an online SEO Course. One of the elements I mentioned was looking at webmaster tools and the index. Today I take a look at a FMCG brand’s webmaster tools and the Google index. It’s clear that I’m the only one looking at it. Their online marketers are certainly not. If they were they’d understand why they are not ranking for their own brand! I don’t care how difficult a phrase is to rank, if it’s your brand Google WANTS to rank you on page one. If you’re not, there is a problem with your site not Google. A Stable Site Is Good SEO Take a look at this graph. This is bad. It represents the number of pages on a site that Google crawls over time. SEO Starts with this graph Over the last 12 months the amount of pages this site has had in the Google index has jumped all around the place. as low as 2000 as high as 10,000. If you were doing a major redesign you may see this rise or drop sharply once depending
http://ravensiege.com/seo/seo-starts-here/#001: Our UnPodcast Adventure Begins!
#001: Our UnPodcast Adventure Begins! Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe on iTunes For Episode 1, our UnAdventure begins with the most valuable thing an entrepreneur can have, and ends on Jug Mountain. Just the podcast ride you’ve been waiting for. Hear what Alison thinks about a customer faking the grossest product shipment ever and who Scott thinks you should never mess with online. Other topics include: Why QR codes kill kittens What is, and is not, trademark infringement The dumbest move we’ve seen on the Internet. EVER. How to handle false accusations about your brand The importance of good reviews on your site When to walk away from a problem customer How to determine the difference between a troll and a customer with a legitimate complaint When to give a refund even if the customer is wrong How we’ve scared the crap out of brands Why it’s important for the people handling social media to have authority to take care of a problem And so much more. .
http://ravensiege.com/seo/001-our-unpodcast-adventure-begins/When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday! Today I m going to talk about this extremely troublesome and worrisome problem that Google has expanded keyword (not provided) potentially to 100% of all organic referrals. This isn t necessarily that they ve flipped the entire switch, and everyone s going to see it this week, but certainly over the next several months, it s been suggested, we may receive no keyword data at all in referrals from Google. Very troubling and concerning, obviously, if you re a web marketer. I think it should be very troubling and concerning if you re a web user as well, because marketers don t use this data to do evil things or invade people s privacy. Marketers use this data to make the web a better place. The agreement that marketers have always had—that website creators have always had—with search engines, since their inception was, sure, we ll let you crawl our sites, you provide us with the keyword data so that we can improve t
http://ravensiege.com/seo/when-keyword-not-provided-is-100-percent-of-organic-referrals-what-should-marketers-do-whiteboard-tuesday/Monday, September 23, 2013
Google Acquires Unisys Patents Including Java API Patent
Google Acquires Unisys Patents Including Java API Patenthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seobythesea/Tesr/~3/Pfi6iXywWAg/http://www.seobythesea.com/feed/SEO by the SeaGetting Information about Search and SEO Directly from the Search Engines The post Google Acquires Unisys Patents Including Java API Patent appeared first on Website, SEO and Social Media Management Company.
http://ravensiege.com/seo/google-acquires-unisys-patents-including-java-api-patent/#001: Our UnAdventure Begins!
#001: Our UnAdventure Begins! Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed For Episode 1, our UnAdventure begins with the most valuable thing an entrepreneur can have, and ends on Jug Mountain. Just the podcast ride you’ve been waiting for. Hear what Alison thinks about a customer faking the grossest product shipment ever and who Scott thinks you should never mess with online. Other topics include: Why QR codes kill kittens What is, and is not, trademark infringement The dumbest move we’ve seen on the Internet. EVER. How to handle false accusations about your brand The importance of good reviews on your site When to walk away from a problem customer How to determine the difference between a troll and a customer with a legitimate complaint When to give a refund even if the customer is wrong How we’ve scared the crap out of brands Why it’s important for the people handling social media to have authority to take care of a problem And so much more. . . Items mentioned i
http://ravensiege.com/seo/001-our-unadventure-begins/Building Your Marketing Funnel with Google Analytics
Do you have an idea of the path a user typically takes to convert on your website? Or, are you simply building traffic from one channel (probably organic) and wondering why it s not converting better? As I ve grown up as a marketer, I ve begun to really appreciate the insights that data can provide us on how users interact with our sites, and more importantly, on how they convert and where the experience can be improved to increase our conversion rates, and thereby our top-line revenue from online channels. I ve recently been very interested in building a full marketing funnel based on Google Analytics data. While it s one thing to be able to identify where conversion discrepancies exist, such as low-converting types of visitors, it s quite another to build a full and informed funnel from your site s data. In order to do this and have an accurate view of where your conversions are actually coming from, you need to first have the following in place: Email URL tracking: Check out Annie
http://ravensiege.com/seo/building-your-marketing-funnel-with-google-analytics/Friday, September 20, 2013
Google Authorship Troubleshooting: Article Attributed to Wrong Author
One of the toughest Google Authorship troubleshooting requests we get at the Google Authorship and Author Rank community on Google+ concerns misattribution of Authorship in Google search results. Misattribution (Google Search showing an author photo of someone other than the actual author of a content piece) occurs because over the past year-and-a-half or so Google has become more aggressive in trying to attribute Authorship. In many cases, Google will take what appears to be an educated guess at the author of a piece. But sometimes, the fault of misattribution is more the site s responsibility, and that s when some careful troubleshooting (ok, outright sleuthing!) can often uncover the problem. Here s an example mystery attribution that we were able to track down and solve: Community moderator Ann Smarty asked us to look at this result for a search for Time-Saving Apps for Social Media Promotion : A very nice Google Authorship rich snippet search result, right? Only one problem. Nwos
http://ravensiege.com/seo/google-authorship-troubleshooting-article-attributed-to-wrong-author/3 Methods Fueled by Data and Tools to Earn More (and Better) Links – Whiteboard Friday
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today I m going to talk a little bit about some data and tools-fueled methodologies to acquire more and better links and, in fact, some links that you may not have been able to find in other ways. So I ll start by saying what does it mean to have a better link? Well, I mean really three things. (A) Editorially given. By that I mean not a link that you go buy. Not a link that you go, sort of, acquire or leave on someone s site unbeknownst to them or get listed in a directory. I mean an editorially given link in that the person who is giving the link runs the website or at least the page where it s being given from, and they intended to link to you and want to link to you and it s out of no other desire other than to share your site or the content that you have, the work that you are doing. They have a relationship with you, they like you, they want to recommend you. Editorially given. (B) From a high-quality, trusted
http://ravensiege.com/seo/3-methods-fueled-by-data-and-tools-to-earn-more-and-better-links-whiteboard-friday/Thursday, September 19, 2013
From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency
Mike s disclaimer: This is not a post about how awesome I am, or how there is only one way to build an internet marketing agency. It s a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing. When I started in 2009 there was very little information online about starting, running, or growing an Internet Marketing Agency. The ones that did exist were from superstars that charged a billion dollars an hour. I am not a superstar. My company started in Burley, Idaho. Here s a rap about my town I wrote. My hope with this post is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn t. Start smart I was in my final semester at BYU-Idaho and had accepted a job to be the chief marketing officer of Rove Pest Control after spending my summers during college as a door-to-door salesman for them. I thought my future was set. But, due to some changes at Rove I knew that I was going t
http://ravensiege.com/seo/from-zero-to-a-million-20-lessons-for-starting-an-internet-marketing-agency/Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Driving Directions vs. Reviews as Ranking Signals for Google Maps
In my college days, I cooked at some local restaurants (free meals made it an attractive option for a starving college student). One of the restaurants was in the center of town, at one end of Main Street, and it was a popular place for local residents who returned over and over. It had a great reputation, and word-of-mouth propelled advertising for the place. Another dining venue I worked at was outside of the center of town, nearby an interstate highway. It didn’t have a great reputation, and very few regular customers, except for people who would stop during mealtime from the busy interstate. The “food” sign from the highway attracted most of the traffic to its dining room. Funny thing is that most of the regulars that frequented the first restaurant rarely had to look up its location, because it was so well known. Most of the people who visited the second restaurant had never been there before, and relied upon the highway sign. There’s another restaurant in that location n
http://ravensiege.com/seo/driving-directions-vs-reviews-as-ranking-signals-for-google-maps/How to Use Tumblr for SEO and Social Media Marketing
An introduction to Tumblr There are so many social media platforms out there today that online marketers have to be concerned about when promoting content online, that it can be easy to overlook some of the important ones. Tumblr is one of those social networks which is often overlooked, but which has tremendous potential for SEO and social media marketing. I myself was slow to adopt Tumblr as a social media platform, but once I started using it I became hooked by its power and simplicity. Hopefully by the end of this post, you ll feel the same. In this post today I will be covering 1) What Tumblr is and how it works, 2) The benefits of Tumblr compared to other social networks, and 3) Actionable advice on how you can use Tumblr for online marketing, including specific content ideas. Sounds good? Let s get started. Why should I care about Tumblr? Before we get too far, let me provide some stats about Tumblr which should help put things into perspective: 130.5 million blogs on Tumblr, a
http://ravensiege.com/seo/how-to-use-tumblr-for-seo-and-social-media-marketing/Using the Correct Hreflang Tag: A New Generator Tool
One of the challenges that International SEOs face is correctly targeting the right web presence to the appropriate search audience. Let s start with a couple of scenarios with these challenges so you can see clearly what I m talking about. If I search from a Mexican IP (using a Proxy service, to simulate being in Mexico) in Google Mexico for comprar zapatos en linea, which in English means buy shoes online I get the following results: As you can see, Dafiti has a Mexican website version that is ranking no. 1, which is relevant in this case; but also has a Colombian version ranking no. 3 and an Argentinian version ranking no. 7. All of them are using ccTLDs, which should ideally give geolocation signals to Google. Additionally, there s a Spain site ranking no. 2 called Sarenza, also using a ccTLD. Here s another example, this time for a couple of branded searches, first only for the brand, edreams in this case, which is a popular travel site with a strong international presence and th
http://ravensiege.com/seo/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool/Tuesday, September 17, 2013
SEO, The Fifth Element
Tweet Tweet I just got back from the Gold Coast having attended the @problogger conference. Darren Rowse opening Problogger Event where I did my SEO Session I was delivering a session on SEO for bloggers. Specifically how to do SEO for wordpress. I was asked many times if I ran SEO courses or if I had any SEO courses that were delivered online. Sadly the answer was no. I used to run SEO Workshops about 5 or 6 years ago. I stopped because I found that there were more people that wanted me to do their SEO than do it themselves. What Would You Want In An SEO Course? Having being inspired by Darren and others at the conference as well as the feedback I received from those who attended, I have decided to create an SEO course. What would you want to see in a course like that? A business owners or blogger’s SEO course would be very different to a tech SEO course. For business owners here would be my top 5 must haves. 5 Things A Business Owner Should Learn About SEO 1. Keyword research The
http://ravensiege.com/seo/seo-the-fifth-element/12 Scalable Link-Building Tactics
Link building/earning is essential in online marketing, and not just because it improves your SEO. It also helps a website be discovered (click-through visitors), generate leads, connect with other publishers (relationships), and build a stronger online brand presence. Although establishing yourself as an authority to eventually earn links throughout the process is what search engines naturally want websites/brands to do, you still can t disregard artificial link building (link marketing). Link marketing is an initiative that should also be strongly considered, as this practice makes a brand more well known in its online space—and sets it up to genuinely earn links in the future. The tactics listed in this post are from the 4-part newsletter series that I launched a couple of weeks ago. Below are the guidelines covered by the series, mostly about implementing some of the most scalable link-building tactics today. These can be used by agencies, SMBs and enterprise-level companies. #1
http://ravensiege.com/seo/12-scalable-link-building-tactics/Monday, September 16, 2013
Avoiding Disaster: How to Prevent the 3 Most Common Content Marketing #Fails
During my SearchLove San Diego presentation last week, I talked about Why Your Content Marketing Initiatives are Failing (And How to Fix Them). I highlighted eight ways content marketing programs can fail or suffer, along with ways to prevent or overcome these various obstacles. I separated my presentation into three distinct sections of failure: tactical, strategic, and internal. While all sections and associated #fails are important to address, strategic failures are the ones that tend to affect the other two. For example, if the strategy is off, then how you tactically execute your content and campaigns will suffer. Likewise, if you can t prove your strategic game, you won t get the internal buy-in required to set up an optimal content marketing program. Thus, strategic is the area you really want to focus on when optimizing your content marketing initiatives. While there are many ways you can up your strategic game, there are three biggies. I ll go through each of these in more de
http://ravensiege.com/seo/avoiding-disaster-how-to-prevent-the-3-most-common-content-marketing-fails/Friday, September 13, 2013
SEO Presentation PBEvent 2013
Tweet Tweet This is my first year at the PBEVENT and I’m giving an SEO Presentation, naturally. I’ve known @problogger for about 10 years and have always been a big fan of his work so I was delighted to be asked to present. On the flight up to the PBEvent every second passenger seemed to be going. On the way to the PBEvENT to do SEO Presentation SEO Basics PBEVENT 2013 As I have only an hour to present I’m distilling the SEO down into the following elements. 1. Get Google Authorship setup 2. Do a site:website.com search on your site to make sure you have the right no. of pages indexed. 3. Use your keywords in title, H1, early in the article, in alt tags, filenames and captions. 4. Use a plugin like All-in-one-seo or Yoast SEO to make the above a little easier. 5. Write a series of at least three posts for a difficult phrase. 6. Get a link off your home page to the post you want to rank for. First impressions of PBEvent I’m very impressed so far. Some of the lessons that blogge
http://ravensiege.com/seo/seo-presentation-pbevent-2013/