marți, 10 martie 2015

10 SEO Myths that Friggin' Tick Me Off - Moz Blog


10 SEO Myths that Friggin' Tick Me Off

Posted on: Tuesday 10 March 2015 — 00:47

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

I love SEO. I love talking about SEO. Most non-SEO folk you talk to are generally very nice people. They may not understand everything you say, but they often nod their head and smile. The open-minded may even ask you to look at their site.

On the other hand, there's the non-SEO "expert" (loosely defined as someone who has a cousin in marketing) who represents a different beast altogether. Well intentioned but misinformed, they believe SEO is urban legend, no better than a Ponzi scheme.

Here's what I have to say to a few of the worst offenders.

1. SEO is a scam

What the friggin' what?

The above screenshot of organic traffic to Moz's own website shows the kind of success many strive for, but it is neither unusual or nor unattainable for folks that consistently invest in SEO as a marketing strategy. 

Sadly, many business owners have been approached by less-than-ethical marketing vendors who promise SEO services but basically deliver nothing. If you are paying $49/month to a service that promises you top rankings in Google, it is almost certainly a scam.

That's not SEO.

Perhaps this most harmful of myths stems from those seeking quick and easy wins with little effort. Indeed, there are cases of SEO wins that meet these criteria, typically when a site has easily correctable technical problems. In other cases, SEO involves real effort and commitment which often pays additional rewards beyond the increase in traffic.

2. Google will figure it out

No. No they friggin' won't.

Here's what many webmasters see far too often when they trust search engines to do their SEO for them.

The temptation of many website owners and developers is to throw as many URLs as possible—sometimes millions—at Google's crawlers and pray that their mysterious algorithms will magically deliver these pages to valuable users. Alternatively, even sites with a handful of pages expect search engines to do all the heavy lifting.

Google is smart, but not magic.

What's forgotten in this equation is that Google and other search engines strive to mimic human behavior in evaluating content (and no human wants to sort through a million near-duplicate pages) and use human generated signals (such as links and engagement metrics) to crawl and rank results.

Every page delivered in search results should be unique, valuable, and more often than not contain technical clues to help search engines sort them from the billions of possible pages on the web. Without these qualities, search marketing is  a game of chance that almost always loses.

3. We did SEO once

Congratulations. Buy yourself a cookie.

It's sad to see organic search traffic fall over time, but all to often that's exactly what happens when no effort is applied. Continually maintaining your SEO efforts is essential because of:

  • Link degradation (a.k.a. link rot)
  • Publishing new pages
  • Evolving search engine algorithms
  • The competition moving ahead of you
  • Outdated content
  • ...and more

For a small minority of sites, SEO doesn't need continual investment. My father-in-law's auto shop is a perfect example. He has more business than he needs, and as long as folks find him when searching for "Helfer Auto" he's happy. In this case, simply monitoring your SEO with the addition of a deeper dive 2-3 times per year may be sufficient.

For the rest of us, one-and-done SEO falls short.

4. Link building is dead (again)

Sigh.

Recently the SEO world got worked up when Google's John Mueller stated link building is something he'd "try to avoid."

Many misinterpreted this to mean that link building is bad, against the rules, and Google will penalize you for it. 

In fact, nothing has changed that the fact that search engines use link authority and anchor text signals heavily in their search ranking algorithms. Or that white-hat link building is a completely legitimate and time-tested marketing practice. 

Ranking Factors

Weighting the Clusters of Ranking Factors in Google's Algorithm by Rand Fishkin

I'm certain John was referring to the more manipulative type of link building, no doubt encountered frequently at Google. To be fair, this type of non-relevant, scaled approach to links should be avoided at all costs, and search engines have taken great strides to algorithmically detect and punish this behavior.

Marketers build links in a number of natural ways, and attracting links to your website remains darn-near essential for any successful SEO undertaking. If you need help, we write about it frequently.

5. I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword"

No. No you friggin' don't.

Look, here's a personal example. I really want to rank #1 for "SEO" because Moz offers SEO software. Because of our Beginner's Guide to SEO. Because SEO is our lifeblood. 

But we don't, and it doesn't matter.

Moz typically ranks #2-3 for "SEO". It sends good traffic, but not nearly as good as the thousands of long-tail keywords with more focused intent. In fact, if you went through our entire keyword set, you would find that "SEO" by itself only sends a tiny fraction of our entire traffic, and we could easily survive without it.

The truth is, when you create solid content focused around topics, you almost always receive far more (and oftentimes better) traffic from long-tail keywords that you didn't try to rank for.

The magic happens when visits reach your site because the content matched thier needs, but not necessarily when you matched the right keywords.

6. Google hates SEO

Some days, it feels that way.

In truth, Google's relationship with SEO is much more nuanced.

  1. Google readily states that SEO can "potentially improve your site and save time" and that many SEO agencies "provide useful services." Google even advises "If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better."
  2. Google published their own SEO Starter Guide. While a bit out of date, it certainly encourages people to take advantage of SEO techniques to improve search visibility.
  3. Google Analytics offers a series of SEO Reports. Keep in mind, these are almost laughably unusable due to the handicapped data quality.

While Google seems to encourage search engine optimization, it almost certainly hates manipulative SEO. The type of SEO meant to trick search engines into believing false popularity and relevancy signals in order to rank content higher.

In fact, many of the myths in the post boil down to some folks' inability to distinguish between hard-working SEO and search engine spam. Which leads us to:

7. SEO is dead, because Google Answers

It's scary for SEOs when we ask Google a question and see an actual answer instead of a link, as in the example below. It's even more frightening when Google takes over entire verticals such as the weather, mortgage calculators, or song lyrics.

With the flip of a button, it seems Google can wipe out entire business models.

Screenshot hat tip to Dan Barker

In reality, search growth and traffic continues to grow for most industries. Consider the following:

  • World Internet and search activity continues to rise, particularly in the mobile sector. This generally indicates that more users are performing more searches on a greater number of devices.
  • MozCast reports only 4.9% of Google searches result in an answer box.
  • A recent study by Stone Temple showed that 74.3% of Google answer boxes contained linked attribution, while the rest was public domain knowledge.

Anecdotal evidence further suggests that even when presented with answer boxes, a large number of users click through to the cited website.

People want answers, but at least for now they also want their websites.

8. SEO is all tricks

Really? This is plain sad. Somebody make me a sad salad.

"Tricks" is what professionals call bad, manipulative SEO that gets you penalized. The problem, I believe, is the first thing any developer or marketing manager hears about SEO is something close to "put more keywords in the title tag." 

If that's all SEO is, it does sound like tricks.

Real SEO makes every part of content organization and the browsing experience better. This includes:

  1. Creating content that reverse engineers user needs
  2. Making content more discoverable, both for humans and search engine crawlers
  3. Improving accessibility through site architecture and user experience
  4. Structuring data for unambiguous understanding
  5. Optimizing for social sharing standards
  6. Improving search presence by understanding how search engines generate snippets
  7. Technical standards to help search engines categorize and serve content to the right audience
  8. Improving website performance through optimizations such as site speed
  9. Sharing content with the right audiences, increasing exposure and traffic through links and mentions

Each of these actions is valuable by itself. By optimizing your web content from every angle, you may not even realize you're doing SEO, but you'll reap many times the rewards.

9. PageRank

Actually, I like PageRank. 

But it's still a flippin' myth.

PageRank was an incredibly innovative solution allowing Google to gauge the popularity of a webpage to the point that they could build the world's best search engine on the concept. 

Despite what people say, PageRank is very likely still a part of Google's algorithm (although with severely reduced influence). More than that, PageRank gave Google the ability to build more advanced algorithms on top of the basic system. 

Consider concepts like Topic Sensitive Page Rank or even this recent paper on entity salience from Google Research which highlights the use of a PageRank-like system.

The source of many bad myths

So why is PageRank such a bad myth?

  1. Toolbar PageRank, the PageRank most SEOs talk about, will likely never be updated again
  2. PageRank correlates poorly with search engine rankings, to the point that we quit studying it long ago.
  3. PageRank is easy to manipulate.

Fortunately, Google has moved away from talking about PageRank or supporting it in a public-facing way. This will hopefully lead to an end of people using PageRank for manipulative purposes, such as selling links and shady services.

If you're interested, several companies have developed far more useful link metrics including Majestic's Citation Flow, Ahrefs Rank, and Moz's Page and Domain Authority.

10. Social activity doesn't affect SEO

At this point, I barely have strength left to argue. 

Explaining this myth could take an entire post, so I'll boil it down the bare facts. The basic argument goes like this:

"Google says they don't use Facebook likes or Tweet counts to rank websites. Therefore, social activity doesn't matter to SEO."

This statement is half right, but can you guess which half?

It's true that Google does not use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings

On the other hand, successful social activity can have significant secondary effects on your SEO efforts. Social activity helps address two of the major tasks facing SEOs:

  1. Search engine discovery and indexation
  2. Content distribution, which leads to links and shares

Perhaps no one explains it better than AJ Kohn, in his excellent Social Signals and SEO.

Stolen with permission from AJ Kohn

Successful social activity puts your content in front of the right group of users, increasing visits, engagement, and brand signals like the number of users searching for your site. Finally, the simple act of more influencers visiting your content can lead to more links and further sharing, and the cycle repeats itself. All of these secondary effects can significantly boost your SEO efforts.

More myths from SEOs

We asked several folks on Twitter about thier least favorite SEO myths. Here are a few favorite replies.

What SEO myth drives you nuts? Let us know in the comments below!


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Seth's Blog : Avert your eyes

Avert your eyes

When there's a wreck on the side of the road, we can't help it. Despite our best efforts, we look at the accident, sometimes even slow down to get a really good look.

Why?

To remind ourselves it's not us. To reassure ourselves it's not someone we know. Phew.

Rubbernecking is our way of reassuring ourselves.

Often, though, we do precisely the opposite when it comes to the apparently unfixable, to the enormity of horrible events, to tragedies.

(Enormity doesn't mean "extra enormous." It refers to the emptiness of something so horrible and large we have trouble comprehending it).

Time magazine produces a cover that we can't bear, so we don't buy that issue. We don't see the billboard. A disease appears uncurable, so we don't talk about it. It's easier to talk about the little stuff, or events with hope.

We also do it with science, to facts about the world around us.

There's a long history of denialism, defending the status quo and ignoring what others discover. That two balls of different weights fall at the same speed. That the Earth rotates around the Sun. That the world is millions of years old. That we walked on the Moon.

The denials all sound the same. They don't come from stupidity, from people who aren't smart enough to understand what's going on. They come from people who won't look.

Why deny? It's a way to avert our eyes.

Two related reasons, internal and external.

The external reason is affiliation. What happens to one's standing when you dare to question the accepted status quo? What are the risks to doing your own research, to putting forth a falsifiable theory and being prepared to find it proven wrong? What will you tell your neighbors?

When adherence to the status quo of our faith or organization or social standing looms large, it's often far easier to just look the other way, to feign ignorance or call yourself a skeptic (n.b. all good scientists are actually skeptics, that's how they build careers… the difference is that the skeptical scientist does the work to prove to her peers that she's right, and acknowledges when she's not). 

There's more data available to more people than ever before. And the prize for using statistics and insight to contradict the scientific status quo is huge. If a thesis doesn't sit right with you, look closer, not away. Do the science, including acknowledging when your theory isn't right.

The internal reason is fear. The fear of having to re-sort what we believe. Of feeling far too small in a universe that's just too big. Most of all, of engaging in a never-ending cycle of theories and testing, with the world a little shaky under our feet as we live with a cycle that gets us closer to what's real.

Part of being our best selves is having the guts to not avert our eyes, to look closely at what scares us, what disappoints us, what threatens us. By looking closely we have a chance to make change happen.

       

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luni, 9 martie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Brazil Succeeds Beyond Wildest Dreams in Winning "Currency War"

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 04:57 PM PDT

File this story in the category of "be careful what you wish for, you just may get it".

I am talking about Brazil, more specifically, Brazil's currency, the Real. Let's also investigate comments made by former finance minister Guido Mantega about the Real.

BRL vs. US Dollar



click on any chart for sharper image

Flashback March 2012

I highlighted the March 2012 candle because that's when Brazil Declared New Currency War on US and Europe.

"When the real appreciates, it reduces our competitiveness. Exports are more expensive, imports are cheaper and it creates unfair competition for businesses in Brazil," said Guido Mantega, the finance minister who was the first to use the controversial term "currency war" in 2010.

My comment at the time was "Mathematically speaking, the desire for every country to be net exporters is impossible. Massive trade wars are on the horizon as a result."

Flashback July 2011

In July of 2011, in Credit Crisis in Brazil: Consumer Loan Rates Hit 47%, Defaults Soar, Debt Service Tops 50% of Disposable Income I posted an email from Otavio. He is from Brazil.

Otavio wrote ...
Hello Mish

Otavio here, a Brazilian follower of your blog. Today I want to express my satisfaction as I read you latest post entitled Preposterous Statements - Jim Rogers: "No Food at Any Price"; Barton Biggs: " U.S. Needs Massive Infrastructure Program".

When I hear statements like these, it feels like the move up in commodity prices might be near the end. I cannot stress more the fact that high prices fueled by zero interest rates in developed and many emerging markets (for many years now) are a fruit of rampant speculation.

We have our own credit bubble here, which in my opinion has a good chance of busting sooner rather than later ....

For the record, I will say that in my opinion, Brazilian real estate, many local stocks, and our currency (the Real), are extremely overvalued as well.

Cheers
Otavio
At that time Brazil's Finance Minister, Guido Mantega announced "The government will continue to take measures to contain the over-valuation of the exchange rate."

I commented "I am inclined to agree with Otavio who says the Real is extremely overvalued".

"Winning" the Currency War

Today, I declare victory on behalf of Mantega!

Mantega "won" his currency war. The Real was worth $0.65 in June of 2011. It is now worth about $0.32. That's a decline of slightly over 50%, and a clear "victory" over US forces allegedly conspiring to drive the Real higher.

Surely this is good for the Brazil stock market. Right?

In search of more victories let's take a look.

EWZ - Brazilian iShares



The above chart does include currency depreciation. Straight up, the chart looks better.

$BVSP - Brazilian Stock Market



What about interest rates?

Brazil 10-Year Yield



Brazil 1-Year Yield



Too Much Success

To shore up the currency, Brazil has now had to hike rates.

But note the yield curve inversion. Brazil 1-year bonds yield more than 10-year bonds, a clear recession signal.

This is what's known as "too much success".

It's also too bad that Mantega is no longer around to receive my celebratory victory call.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff Shuffled Mantega out the Door in November of 2014. Former treasury head Joaquim Levy took over as finance minister in one of many shifts announced by Rousseff.

Success Hard to Stop

Please note that it's hard to stop success once it gets rolling.

At the time of the appointments, a Real was worth about $0.40. Now it's worth about $0.32. That's an additional 20% success in just over three months.

Moreover, recent success comes in spite of three straight rates hikes by the central bank, the last one was a 50 basis point hike on March 4th to 12.75%.

Recession is a given.

Brazilians Voice Anger

On the political side, Dilma Rousseff campaigned with an anti-austerity message last year. She barely won reelection and her first move was to launch a series of budget cuts.

Her speech last Sunday explaining the campaign lie was not well received: Brazilians Voice their Anger as Currency and Economy Continue their Collapse.
President Dilma Rousseff went on national television on Sunday to ask for patience and understanding and was greeted by spontaneous protests in the country's major cities, Brazilian media reported, describing citizens shouting "Dilma out" from their windows, banging pans, turning lights on and off and sounding car horns.
Nothing succeeds like success!

Addendum - Petrobras Scandal

One person suggested the Petrobras scandal explains the currency decline. That's not quite accurate, although it certainly adds to the misery.

A slowdown in China hurt all commodity exporters. That set off a round of capital flight. Excellent grain harvests further hurt commodity exporters.

One look at the currency charts of Australia, Canada, and Russia will also show the commodity exporter tie-in. Clearly Russia has other problems as well including sanctions and Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the scandal is major news. 54 politicians are accused of taking bribes. Those politicians include a former president and the speakers of both chambers of Congress.

The BBC reports Brazil Petrobras Scandal: Top Politicians Accused
President Dilma Rousseff has been completely cleared of any involvement in the scheme. She chaired the board of Petrobras for seven years when much of the corruption is believed to have taken place.

Brazil's Attorney General Rodrigo Janot has accused many senior politicians of taking bribes. The list includes Senate President Renan Calheiros, President of the Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha, former Energy Minister Edison Lobao and former President Fernando Collor de Mello.

Analysts say because Petrobras has not yet been able to say exactly how much money it has lost to corruption, no-one knows for sure how much its assets are really worth.

In December, prosecutors charged executives from six of the country's largest construction firms for allegedly channelling kickbacks into a Petrobras scheme to pay politicians.
In Brazilian law, politicians and cabinet officials are tried by the Supreme Court.

The Financial Times adds Petrobras scandal threatens to scupper Brazil austerity drive.
Petrobras, the country's largest company with a virtual monopoly over oil exploration in Brazil, is reeling from allegations that senior Petrobras executives accepted bribes from many of Brazil's biggest construction companies in exchange for contracts.

Much of the money was allegedly passed on to politicians, mostly in the ruling coalition.

The scandal is complicating an already difficult political and economic scenario for Ms Rousseff, who won elections last October by the narrowest margin in recent history. The PT's main coalition partner, the PMDB, is now the largest party in congress and is trying to force Ms Rousseff to share more power.

At the same time, Ms Rousseff's new finance minister, Joaquim Levy, is trying to set Brazil's public finances back on track to avoid a sovereign credit rating downgrade after years of fiscal largesse.

Tension has focused on her appointment of Mr Levy, a University of Chicago-trained orthodox economist. His fiscal austerity programme, which includes trimming benefits and raising taxes and interest rates, is straining relations with more leftist elements in the party.
The Real's decline from $0.64 to $0.44 is not related to the scandal. Most of the decline from $0.44 to $0.32 is related to the scandal. Where it ends, I don't know.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

New Space Program Announced

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 02:58 PM PDT

A truly enjoyable video just came my way from reader Paul.


Link if video does not play: 3rd World Space Program.

Judging from comments, I believe the video was made in Thailand. A few comments stand out.

Trey: To me this is a joyful celebration of life, and possibilities. We would never be allowed to have this much fun here in the states.

Scott: The device is called a girandola and it is driven by rockets. The spin provides gyroscopic stabilization while the rockets (not the central blade, which is completely flat) provide the entirety of the thrust. The design of this particular girandola is different from most I've seen as it appears that the rockets on the center beam are being used to provide both spin and thrust (most designs use different rockets for spin and thrust).

Robert: According to Lloyd Sponenberg, this is a hooped tourbillion, not a girandola. It looks very much like a caduceus rocket with more drivers and a flywheel for stabilization.

Peter: That was totally brilliant, so funny watching everyone running for cover. With the seemingly unsynchronized wick lighting, I thought it was going to go lopsided but no, like a true fire god it shot up true, spiraling as it went. The big surprise was the parachute. I thought it would be left to plummet to the ground.

Tony: After a hasty exit from the launch platform, the home-made Thai rocket blasts off incredibly fast and then spin crazily as it propels itself hundreds of meters into the sky, leaving behind a double helix trail. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the most entertaining thing I've seen so far this year.

Rick: Forget the possibly derogatory video title. This is really cool!

David: I would feel completely triumphant if I had been involved. It made me feel wonderful and I was not even there!

I echo the sentiments of David and Trey. And I too dislike the original title "3rd World Space Program".

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Draghi's Goal: Higher inflation and Negative Yields; ECB’s Asset Purchases to Outstrip Supply 3-1; Is There a Catch?

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 11:55 AM PDT

In the totally mad goal of creating "confidence" via higher inflation, the ECB's €1.1 Trillion Buying programme Begins.
Although the ECB's bond buying programme is intended to lift inflation and boost confidence, the rise in bond yields that usually accompany higher inflation may not manifest due to the size of the plan, say bankers.

The size of the eurozone's quantitative easing programme is expected to squeeze the supply of debt traded on markets to such an extent that yields could instead continue to fall.

Zoso Davies, credit strategist at Barclays, said the ECB's asset purchases would outstrip the net supply of bonds in the targeted area by a factor of three-to-one, shrinking them by €840bn.
ECB, Bank of Japan to Buy 100% or More of Net Issuance

Last October, Bloomberg reported BOJ Stands Ready to Buy Every New Bond Abe's Government Issues.

Starting today, the ECB will top that for Germany. Zerohedge provides this chart.



Yields on German bonds are already negative out to 6 years.

German 6-Year Bonds



German 7-Year Bonds



Come and Get It

If you want positive yielding German bonds, you can still get 0.018% on the German 7-year bond. This deal will not last long.

Yes, once again I have a fitting musical tribute.



Link if video does not play: Beatles, Come and Get It

If you want it, here it is
Come and get it
Make your mind up fast

If you want it anytime I can give it
But you better hurry 'cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch?
Will you walk away from a fool and his money?

If you want it, here it is
Come and get it
But you better hurry 'cause it's going fast

Thing of the Past

Positive rates on the German 7-year bond will soon be a thing of the past.

How low will negative rates get?

Place your bets. Right now, 1-month bonds yield -0.31%.

Before this madness ends we could easily see negative yields all the way out to 10 years or beyond.

Somehow this madness is supposed to inspire confidence. I suggest it won't.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Strange Services You Won't Believe People Pay For

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 03:25 PM PDT


















19 Scary Photos That Are Completely Real

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 02:16 PM PDT

These pictures are real and they're scarier than anything you're ever going to see in a horror movie.





















What “America's Next Top Model” Winners Look Like Now

Posted: 09 Mar 2015 11:23 AM PDT

Have you ever wondered what the winners of America's Next Top Model" are up to? You're about to find out.