SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

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• The Power Of Volunteer Search Marketing
• So Much Great New Stuff (On-Page Tool, More Accurate Rankings and a Linkscape Update!)
• Recommendations for Blog Commenting as a Marketing Strategy

The Power Of Volunteer Search Marketing Posted: 26 Jan 2011 05:21 AM PST Posted by Keenan Steel This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. This post is primarily a beginning guide to doing volunteer search engine marketing for nonprofit organizations based on my experience, but it is also an effort to convince more companies to donate time and resources to charities. Companies that do so may find significant SEO benefits for their own site, as explained in what follows. Over the last several years, I've had a few chances to volunteer with a fine charity that takes innocent refugees from areas of danger, relocates them throughout the world, and helps them to begin new lives. While collecting and gathering donated furniture was fulfilling, I wondered if I could make a bigger difference. I began to see that the charity was restrained by a lack of resources and capital, as I'm sure most not-for-profit organizations do. It's a double-edged sword with charities: if they spend no money on fund raising, they have no funds to distribute. If they spend too much on fund raising, a lower percentage (in greater quantities) of the money goes to the cause, which can hurt a charity's ratings. What if there was a way that I could increase the charity's visibility long-term without them having to pay for expensive fund raising and marketing services? This was my motivation for learning SEO. I hope you will help out, and what follows is a guide to how and why. Getting The Orgs On The SERPS When I do nonprofit SEO, I try to target keywords and phrases where I won't feel bad about taking traffic from the top two or three results. I feel that some charities deserve top spots more than others, and even the charity space is full of spammy blogs, AdSense farms, affiliate sites, and other non-relevant sites that you can de-throne. On-Page SEO Just get over the fact that your chosen charity's site will be horrible for SEO. It might almost make you cry when you see a PR 6+ page with a title like “Home.” See it as an excellent opportunity and make the on-page suggestion. Don't take it personally when no one thanks you, or even understands why you're trying to mess with their site. You'll probably have to sell thoroughly explain the benefit of the changes, as the non-commercial sphere is typically less savvy on the internet marketing front. Leverage The Cause People are much more open to charitable organizations when a link is requested. You can often get links from organizations which, in the for-profit sphere, would be considered partial or even direct competitors. No luck sending emails? Consider a popular selling strategy, which becomes even more effective when you're not "selling" anything. I saw the ancient computers that my favorite charity was using, so I hit up a few locally owned stores to see if they could donate any of their older models. I did secure a few new machines, but I was largely unsuccessful. I had expected this, so after putting the pressure on for a big favor, store owners were relieved when I made my next request. I asked the owner of the store whether he would mind placing a link on his site to the charity. It didn't cost the store anything, and it actually made them look better. The final text was something along the links of "(Store) is proud to promote the efforts of (site) in (cause)". The cause was a deep link with targeted anchor text. They didn't give us a portion of the sales, but even the link was support. Search queries aside, we received a large amount of quality traffic. Build Relationships Spamming blog networks is not the way to build solid long-term authority. This is good advice for any marketing or SEO campaign, but it is especially true in SEO for nonprofits. Where else can you ask for someone to send some volunteers and expect them to link to you for doing so? People love to show off their good deeds, and we usually like to hear about them. Rankings go up, the charity's visibility rises, and everyone wins! Take advantage of the fact that you're (hopefully) not just trying to enrich yourself. That alone gives you instant credibility in the eyes of business owners and large companies. If you're willing to organize an event, you can work with college departments and clubs to win some sexy .edu links. Accreditation And Google Grants Depending on your role as a volunteer, you can either suggest or push for approval and ratings from a number of charity watchdogs and oversight groups. These pages are usually authoritative and relevant – not just in the eyes of Google, but in the eyes of users. Being accredited, approved, etc helps when applying for other types of assistance. You might be surprised how often Google approves Google Grants, which come in the form of free AdWords credits. Grants are definitely worth taking the time to apply for. Oh, and did I mention that you could get a Google link when they give you assistance? Organize The Masses When you or your charity plan large events or volunteer operations, you can earn some serious blog love. Speak with local businesses, news outlets, and more regarding coverage. If they're already covering the event, you can even help them target anchor text to the right pages. The people who talk about you are usually willing to help, so don't be shy about giving them detailed instructions on how they can. I may be a skeptic, but I honestly believe that most people are generous and empathetic if you can give them a reason to care. What's In It For You? What, you mean warm fuzzy feelings aren't enough? Honestly, though: never underestimate the impact that this can have on morale, especially if you achieve results for a cause that employees believe in. Requesting Links To Your Site I know that this is being read by a group of experienced SEOs, and the first thought is probably that you can earn links from high-authority charities. This is true, but please request links with tact. You'll probably get better results and avoid shaming the industry of search engine optimization if links are given freely. What I beg you not to do is approach charities with anything that sounds like "I will do SEO for you if you give me a link." This is essentially a paid link, and if I have my way it will also get you reported to the BBB, Google, and every consumer watchdog imaginable. Besides, it's just bad social conduct. Public Relations Aside from the nonprofit site, you can get some serious love from the media. Good PR is a part of smart SEO, and no company is too large or too small to benefit from the press. Submit a press release explaining some of the work you have done and are going to do for the nonprofit - with their permission, of course. You can feel good about the PR in that it will benefit the nonprofit's SEO campaign and market visibility, in addition to your own. If done correctly, the press release can trigger interest from additional media sources. If you have additional questions or tips, please drop them in the comments. I'm always open to learning more. Note that I have left out the charity that I keep referring to per their request. If you would like more information on this charity, or if you would like suggestions on local/national charities, feel free to send me a private message. Do you like this post? Yes No

So Much Great New Stuff (On-Page Tool, More Accurate Rankings and a Linkscape Update!) Posted: 25 Jan 2011 04:54 PM PST Posted by randfish You might have noticed that SEOmoz has been heating up with some spiffy new changes of late. Our engineering and product teams are in a groove, and that means cool new stuff every 2-3 weeks. Last night, some really slick new features rolled out and today, Linkscape's updated too (our last one was only 21 days ago - meaning data is awesomely fresh). Let's start with the fun part. Our old term target tool has been dying for a long time. In fact, we've been wanting to replace it for so long that today, with it's demise and the birth of the new on-page optimization tool, we simply had to hold a wake. Our customer service team wore black armbands and brought out a cart with old pictures of the tool, whisky and Guiness. In fact, we might have gotten a bit carried away. I actually wrote a eulogy (which you can watch on video below thanks to Jamie's quick thinking): Yeah, we're more than a little weird. But we're also crazy excited about the new On-Page Optimization Report tool: It mimics the functionality of the web app's keyword recommendation system, but can be used on any page + keyword combination on the web. For those of you working outside the web app's campaign environment sometimes, it's a lifesaver. Next, we've changed the way rankings are gathered to remove the previous geographical bias that existed. When you run keyword searches through the web app to track your rankings, you'll now see geographically agnostic results. You can see a comparison below for the keyword "SEO" on Google (both are from logged-out, non-cookied, non-personalized browsers). We've been testing this system internally and with some of SEO friends and thus far, the results appear to provide a much more "universal" ordering in the SERPs. For many keywords, this won't have any impact at all (as Google only geo-biases ~25% of queries from what we can tell), but for those who've been troubled by the number of searches that contain suspiciously "Seattle-focused" results, this fix should help. Note that unfortunately, it's not yet in keyword difficulty or the classic rank tracking tool (separate from the campaign web app). And last, but not least, Linkscape's index updated today with brand new link data which is now visible through Open Site Explorer, the classic Linkscape tool, the mozBar and the sweet new link analysis tab in your web app: Statistics for this month's Linkscape update (index 37) are below: URLs: 42,969,159,966 (43 Billion) Subdomains: 393,943,689 (394 Million) Root Domains: 110,533,726 (110 Million) Percent of Links w/ Nofollows: 2.15% Percent of Nofollows that are Internal: 57.14% Percent of Nofollows that are External: 42.86% Average Number of Links per Page: 61.96 (9.49 External) 8.31% of URLs crawled were 404 errors 6.05% of URLs crawled were 302 redirects 4.56% of URLs crawled were 301 redirects 3.57% of URLs were blocked with robots.txt 2.54% of URLs used meta noindex We've got a ton of cool new things coming to the web app and PRO membership over the next few months, so please keep an eye out and thanks for joining us on this exciting journey. We hope to knock your socks off with releases throughout the year!   Do you like this post? Yes No

Recommendations for Blog Commenting as a Marketing Strategy Posted: 24 Jan 2011 05:23 PM PST Posted by randfish Many of us in the web marketing space have a love/hate relationship with the practice of leveraging blog comments as a marketing strategy. On the one hand, it can bring valuable participation and content to our sites and provide an outlet for us to reach other communities and bloggers/comment-enabled communities. But, it's also an endless source of spam and low quality contributions that teeter on the "publish-worthy" seesaw. Given the ongoing popularity of this practice and some recent successes (and failures) I've observed and participated in personally in this arena, I felt it worthwhile to explore in more depth. Why Comment on Blogs? Branding / Awareness - commenting on blogs will almost certainly get you at least a brief once-over from the writer, and consistent contributions are a proven way to build relationships with bloggers. That participation can also yield awareness and branding to the blog's audience, at least those who are consistent comment readers and interactors. Depending on the blog/sector and your goals, this can be a very positive marketing move. _ Direct traffic - comments with links, especially those that are well-written and entice readers to click a link (rather than just being a random/irrelevant/spammy link drop) will send visits. If the post itself continues to earn traffic, this can even be an ongoing source of referrals to your site/page.   SEO / Search Rankings - some blogs use "dofollow" links in the comments that are approved and may send search ranking value. However, it's generally my opinion that many of these links aren't treated as... let's say "impactfully" as normal links in the search engines' ranking systems. However, leaving a link that is so useful and valuable that the blog author edits his/her post to include it (something I've done many times here on SEOmoz and helped to make happen through my own comments) is definitely SEO accretive.   Second-Order Marketing Impact - many of the effects you might feel from commenting aren't directly impactful, but instead come later on as a result of the post. e.g. the reporter who follows up on a comment for detail to include in a story, the link to your content that comes from another blog discussing your comment, etc. Given these goals, it's essential to think a bit more strategically about the practice of commenting and participation. Whereas the right contribution can bring you all of the above, the wrong one(s) could adversely impact many of these. 10 Recommendations for Blog Comments Read the last 5 posts made by the author - assuming you've never participated in this particular blog/community previously, make it a pre-requisite of commenting to read through their prior material. You'll get a good sense of the author, their interests, their perspective and their writing style. All of these will help you considerably to make a positive, impactful impression with your comment.   Read at least 3 posts worth of comments - If you don't read the comments on other posts, you may have a tough time getting a sense for the community's level and style of discourse, making your comment appear out of place. You want to stick out from the crowd, but not because you're an inexperienced contributor. If it's your first time to a site, don't just drive-by comment and link drop, take the time to understand protocol and your contribution will be far more likely to generate value.   Read previously posted comments on the thread - This one's obvious, but also oft-forgotten. In order to have a comment that the author and other readers will take seriously, you need to know what else was posted on the thread. If there's dozens or hundreds of comments, it's OK to skim, but make sure your point is being made and discussed earlier a reply or back-and-forth thread may even be a more appropriate place to post your content in these cases.   Write "more than a tweet t and less than a blog post" - The exact amount is up to you, but generally speaking, the range between a long tweet (~140 characters) and 2-3 paragraphs (too short to be its own blog post) is ideal. It's easy to consume, but gives you enough room to make a substantive point (and potentially leave a relevant/useful link). If you do want to go much longer, write that post! The content will likely be more valuable for marketing on your site, and many times, the author may append their post to include your link. You can then make a short, relevant comment in the post itself and leave a link back to your more in-depth piece.   Never drop a pure bio/reference link - If you link with something like this, you're barking up the wrong tree: These sorts of "drive-by" link drops will get rejected 8/10 times and have the link removed before approval the rest. If you're going to leave a link, it better be highly relevant to the post, interesting to the audience and as non-promotional as possible (or, if it is highly promotional, prefaced transparently as such).   You may link to your own content a maximum of once in a comment - If you're linking to the content of others as a reference, it's fine to leave a link or two, even three (this can be particularly useful if you're referencing data points, studies, surveys, etc. that back up a point), but if it's promotional in any way (even if it simply exists on a site you own/control), best practice says keep it to one.   If at all possible, use your real identity and photo - The goodwill and trust built from an authentic human face and name that go together, match the bio/team of the site they link to and carry across mediums (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is invaluable. It can often mean the difference between being treated as a respected new member vs. a black hat spammer. If at all possible, use your real identity, full name, and actual photo.   Be authentic and honest about who you are and why you're there - You may be paranoid that by admitting you're a marketer, a community manager, an SEO, etc. you'll be thought worse of and potentially excluded, but I can say from experience that honesty is the best policy and that being open about your motivations and background will more often than not build trust and acceptance. That said, in many communities, if your title is officially "SEO link builder" or "SEO specialist" you might want to modify that slightly to "organic marketing specialist" or "content marketer" or even "blogger," if the title fits. So long as those descriptions are still honest, they can lessen the negative perception that "SEO" unfortunately still carries.   It's OK to promote your comment (and their post) socially - Bloggers love getting their work tweeted/shared, so if you tweet/FB share a reference to your comment on their post, particularly if you call them out by name, it can have a very positive effect. For example:   Make your profile link point to an appropriate place - You can ruin a great comment by linking to what seems like a spammy/manipulative site. If you run a site that's completely off-topic for the blog/community to which you're contributing, at least point to your bio page on the site rather than the homepage. Seeing a great response from "Maggie Thompson" that links to "www.suffolkhomeloans.info" might get a link-strip, but linking to "www.suffolkhomeloans.info/maggies-bio.html" could very possibly pass the same smell test. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions on comment marketing. And if you want to write your own blog post about it and link drop, feel free - the thumbs here at SEOmoz do a great job of sorting the great comments with links from the spammy, drive-by linkers. Do you like this post? Yes No

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