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joi, 17 martie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Sharing Everything I Learned As A Top-Tier SEO Consultant at SEOmoz

Posted: 17 Mar 2011 03:50 AM PDT

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.

Prepare to stay out late, polish your dancing shoes and crank up the music. Today, I am very excited to announce that after almost two years, my book explaining everything I know about SEO is finally publicly available!

And the crowd goes wild!

A Bit of Background:

For the past two years I have been working on an SEO resource that I hoped would help level the knowledge playing field in the SEO community. I am very excited to share that it is finally available! I wrote an extremely comprehensive book titled SEO Secrets that literally explains everything I know about SEO. All of it. The good, the bad, the embarrassing and the ugly. (The last two being my self-portrait on the back cover.)

Starting today, you can read all of the knowledge, skills and secrets that I learned during my three years at SEOmoz. This includes all of the processes, paperwork and experiences that the team here used while doing SEO consulting for many of the world's top brands. Cue logo marquee! (Disney, Comcast, Microsoft, Yelp, Facebook, Etsy, etc...).

Isn't Sharing ALL of Your SEO Secrets a Little Overzealous? â€¨â€¨

While at SEOmoz, I was Lead SEO. Today, I work as the Senior SEO Manager at AT&T. Since these are both in-house SEO jobs, I am in the very unique situation that I can tell the world the valuable secrets I had learned about SEO consulting without it negatively affecting my career or my company. This translates to money in the bank for you!

But Aren't There Already Books About SEO?â€¨â€¨

After I got this book deal (What. Up.), the first thing I did was read every SEO book that was out there. I learned what I found useful and what was poorly disguised fluff. I quickly realized that if I was going to write a book that I would actually want to read, I would need to focus on making all of its content actionable. I spent several months asking hundreds of different SEOs (that includes many of you!) what they would want to read. I spent the following year and a half writing those answers.â€¨â€¨ Based on my research and the feedback from many of you, I made sure the book answered the following questions:

How do SEO professionals do link building?
What paperwork do I need to keep myself protected?
What metrics should I use for measurement?
How do you land your first major SEO client?
How much should I charge for SEO services?
How do I get speaking gigs?
How do I effectively work in large organizations?
What are the best practices for on-page and off-page SEO?
How do I build my personal SEO brand?
And more!

I was maniacal about documenting each step of the SEOmoz SEO consulting process and developed mental models and diagrams to help explain in written form not only what we did but how we did it. All of this information is clearly laid out in SEO Secrets. â€¨â€¨

I am happy to say that I am very proud of how this work turned out. It is the SEO manual that I wish I had had when I was learning SEO. It is actionable, detailed and answers the hard questions that most SEOs are afraid to divulge.

I learned a lot from working with these companies and I learned a lot from all of you. Now I want to give back.

SEO Secrets is globally available and you can order it today from most of your favorite book retailers.

or learn more on Amazon.co.uk

Just between us...

â€¨â€¨I don't want this to leak on the Internet so keep this on the down low. (Blogs are private right? Just like Facebook?)

Normally my book, SEO Secrets, costs $34.99 for the paperback version. That's almost $35.00! Gross! For the first week only, you can get it at 40% off (that's about $14.00) by buying it directly from my publisher.â€¨â€¨

To get this deal, simply:

Order the book directly from the publisher at http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470554185.html
Enter the promo code "SEOS1" at checkout.

Good luck and happy SEOing!

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Exactly How Powerful Are Tweets & Retweets? Help Us Find Out!

Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by jennita

Over the last few months we've heard a lot of talk about how social signals are starting to influence rankings, but how powerful are those tweets really? Today I wanted to explore what we know so far, take a look at some examples, then push the envelope a bit with another test. Who's with me? Ok, let's do this.

Tweets Affect on Rankings

As you may have read previously, we've had a couple case studies which have shown that tweets can help with organic rankings. The first one was a case study where we asked people to either link to Page A or tweet to Page B. We found that Page B (the tweeted one) ranked higher for specific terms than the linked to one. Obviously there are lots of things that could have come into play here such as duplicate content (the content was somewhat similar), and this test didn't necessarily "prove" one thing or another. What we did find though was that tweets could be quite influential.

The second case study was quite unexpected. Smashing Magazine tweeted about our Beginner's Guide to SEO, and within hours we were ranking #4 for simple term "Beginner's Guide." Whereas previously we didn't rank for that term at all. We showed that before the tweet we didn't have any traffic for the term and after the tweet, POOF, traffic (albeit not a lot).

Last week at SMX West, Matt Cutts was specifically asked about these tests (it's unclear as to which one was actually asked about) and Vanessa Fox wrote up the conversation with Matt over at Search Engine Land. Here's the quote from the article:

Someone asked about the recent SEOmoz post that concluded that retweets alone could boost rankings. Matt said he had asked Amit Singhal, who heads Google’s core ranking team, if this was possible. He said that Amit confirmed links in tweets is not currently part of Google’s rankings so the conclusions drawn by the post were not correct. Rather, other indirect factors were likely at play, such as some who saw the tweet later linked to it. (Purely speculating on my part, those tweets could have been embedded in other sites that in turn were seen as links.)

Matt mentioned that signals such as retweets might help in real-time search results and then talked about a recent change that causes searchers to see pages that have been tweeted.

Some mistakenly took this to mean that the Google algorithm would give a rankings boost to pages that have been tweeted vs. those that haven’t, but Matt was talking about the change a few weeks ago that personalizes search results based on a searcher’s social network connections.

This seems to be the exact opposite of what Google said previously on the subject:

Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.

Perhaps, though, the retweets are a signal for QDF, then all the links that instantly get created by various sites that show tweets, help get it to rank. So, in thinking about this, I wanted to take a peek at a recent "case study" that happened when Mike Pantoliano realized that his (seriously amazing) Excel Guide for SEO was ranking #2 for "excel guide".

Tweet from Mike about Excel Guide

By the way, I just checked using the query URL: http://www.google.co.uk/search?&gl=US&q=excel+guide and see it ranking in 3rd place still today. Remember the original tweet was from March 10, 2011, so it's been almost a week. But what about backlinks, I mean really how many backlinks could that post already have gained? Well according to Yahoo! Site Explorer it has 204 links from external URLs, pretty good for less than a week eh?!

Links from Yahoo Site Explorer to the Guide

It's unclear whether all the tweets and retweets (so far it has 650 tweets) were what pushed it up in the SERPs so quickly, whether it was the instant backlinks created by sites like Topsy, Alltop, Trunk.ly, etc. or if in the end it's a combination of all.

It also seems to be the case that pages/stories which are simply fresh don't always perform well in Google, while those that earn several hundred or thousand tweets will do so, and fast. You can test this anytime by visiting a site like Tweetmeme and looking at the URLs that have been made "popular" in the past 24 hours. Nearly every one will rank for some obscure combination of words in its title, and very few have any links at all. One short example is the search query http://www.google.com/search?q=start+a+new+career which ranks in position #3 a Mashable blog post from a few hours ago that was retweeted 1,000+ times.

Addition: I wanted to add a link to another case study that was tweeted to me by Nick Wilson: Evidence Twitter Influence UK financial SERPs where tweets increased a site's ranking for the term "car insurance" while a contest was going on.

With all this circumstantial evidence in mind, I have one more test I'd like to try...

Is It Possible to Rank for "Jennifer Lopez"?

Over this past weekend, Rand noticed that when you ran a search for "jen lopez" my SEOmoz profile page shows up. I wonder if at the time he was also seeing a photo of me show up because one of the retweets of this was from someone who mentioned a photo of me. Rand was in Europe at the time though, so by the time I saw the tweet and ran the query, I only saw my profile showing up.

Rand's Tweet about QDD

I wanted to make double sure that it wasn't just a personalized result and I asked on Twitter if anyone could send me a screenshot of the SERP for the query "jen lopez." My hope was to find someone who possibly had never visited that page before. Debra Mastaler sent me over the screenshot you see below which shows my profile page ranking 4th (in the regular SERPs).

SERP for "Jen Lopez"

I've actually ranked on and off for "jen lopez" since I started working at SEOmoz. Sometimes, the first post I ever wrote titled Google Profile Search (aka How to Rank for Jennifer Lopez) is the one that shows up in the first page of SERPs, but most times it's my profile page.

But what about the query "Jennifer Lopez"? It seems like a pipe dream, but what if? What if tweets really are powerful and a whole bunch of tweets and retweets from authoritative and non-authoritative users could actually boost a page past the thousands and thousands of SERPs for a celebrity name? Is it even possible? Well how about we find out?! But before we get started, I wanted to make sure we all know where the page is starting from.

Current Stats for My Profile Page

Let's take a look at the current stats for my profile page to get a baseline. Honestly the page has a decent amount of backlinks but it doesn't get much traffic and it's only seen a measly 12 tweets in it's almost 2 years of existence. :) Take a look for yourself:

Current MozMetrics
Moz Metrics for Jen's Profile Page

As I mentioned above, there's nothing extraordinary here. Plus if you take a look at the anchor text distribution, I've done a horrible job of getting my name listed as "Jennifer Lopez." This is mostly because I decided long ago that if I didn't brand myself as "Jen Sable Lopez" no one would ever find me in the SERPs. And as a budding SEO at the time, I couldn't stand the thought of a possible employer not being able to find me. So... most of my anchor text is to "Jen Lopez" or "Jen Sable Lopez."

Current traffic for the past month
Current traffic for Jen's profile page

Somewhat obismal traffic as you can see. That spike there is from Rand's tweet that I mentioned above. Every now and then this page gets spikes like that but it's definitely not a page that brings in much traffic at all.

Current Tweets
Current tweets for Jen's Profile page

Waah waah waaah.

Send a Tweet for Testing's Sake

Before jumping right in I want to make note that I honestly don't think tweets are powerful enough to rank for Jennifer Lopez, but I sure as heck want to try. If not for the community, for the thousands Jennifer Lopez' (Michael Boltons, Mike Meyers, Jackie Kennedys, etc.) out there who will never be found in the SERPs! I also want to note that I picked my profile page because it has the highest authority for me and my name than any other page on the web (other than my Twitter page) and I have access to the stats on it. :) If my highest authority page was on my own blog or another site I had access to analytics on, I would have used that.

OK people, let's do this. Now let me reiterate, the idea is to get my SEOmoz profile page to rank for the query "Jennifer Lopez" so be sure to use the big blue button below to send the tweet.

Or, you can copy and paste the text below into whatever Twitter app you use, but use this text:

Jennifer Lopez - the original Jenny from the c-block - http://seomz.me/gaCCDx #jlomoz

We will be tracking the following metrics:

Number of tweets/retweets
Ranking
Traffic
Backlinks
Hashtag (using RowFeeder)

The fact is, it may be completely impossible to ever rank even in the first 1000 results for a celebrity name, but again, I must ask... what if?

PS. I'm headed to SES New York next week and am looking forward to bringing back some valuable insights to the community. If you're planning on being there, be sure to say hi!

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Sunshine, Savings, and Service

Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, March 17, 2011

Sunshine, Savings, and Service

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra takes to the White House White Board to explain how the IT Dashboard website helped save $3 billion in taxpayer funds through transparency. Watch on our Good Government page.

Watch the video.

SEOptimise

Linking Out Instead of Link Building to Rank in Google

Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:05 AM PDT

Recently I noticed that the SEOptimise blog ranks at #1 for the query [seo blog] in Google.co.uk

Then it dawned on me why we rank at #1: the single most important factor to getting there was linking out.

Yes, it wasn’t link building or even getting links; it was simply linking out. You could argue that it’s lots of great content etc, but many SEO blogs from the UK have great content. Nobody is linking out like we do though.

Just consider my most popular posts, the 30+ lists you love. Many of these lists link out to 30+ resources; some don’t, but most of them contain at least several links to resources outside SEOptimise.

I have often pondered whether it’s good or not. I have linked out to authority sites in the SEO industry but also beyond it. In most cases my motive for linking out was a great article, tool or other resource. I’m quite sure that many links were influenced by my virtual friendships. I know and trust many people in the SEO arena now, even without having met them in real life. But even given that bias, the links were genuine.

Great content by itself does not rank

There are lots of great SEO blogs in the UK. I often read and link to them, but many of them rarely show up in the generic rankings for [seo blog]. There are, of course, other reasons not to rank for that particular keyphrase; because it’s not as popular and lucrative as others, some people who blog about SEO don’t aim for it.

Some SEO blogs call themselves search, search marketing or online marketing blogs to name just a few synonyms. Some of the bigger agencies and more well-known SEO companies from the UK do optimise for [seo blog], but don’t even rank in the top 10 – despite publishing regularly and getting links from all over the place. I mean very well known and valuable blogs by the likes of Dave Naylor or Freshegg, who really deserve to rank in the British top 10.

Note that both SEO blogs mentioned above have a PageRank of 5, while we only have a 3. SEOptimise is linking out more than getting links in from other industry publications, so that we actually lose PageRank. As toolbar PageRank is not really a ranking factor but just a metric measuring the number of incoming vs outgoing links, it proves the point even more.

There are only two other UK blogs on the first page for the [seo blog] query on Google.co.uk, while #2 to #6 are firmly in the hands of the US allstars.

Of course I cannot prove the theory that linking out made us rank; it’s my gut feeling. I can’t show you pretty graphs of the number of outgoing links vs the ranking for [seo blog] over time, as I don’t watch these numbers that closely.

What I know for sure is that people I link out to often notice it and either link back sooner or later or at least spread such a post on social media. This is of course logical, and who isn’t glad to get mentioned on another publication. Also, contrary to popular belief, sites that link out plenty do not necessarily lose readers; the best example is Drudge Report which has a much higher engagement than other news sites despite being simply a one-page link list.

Moreover, Matt Cutts acknowledged in 2009 that outbound links are a ranking factor.

Linking out is a strategy not a tactic

Ok, now you think linking out may be an SEO trick or something, you try it out and… nothing happens. Michael Gray of Graywolf SEO did that a few years back. He linked out for testing purposes and tested whether his ranking would go up just by the sheer fact of linking out. His logic was to test whether Google uses linking out as a direct ranking factor and rewards sites that link out accordingly. It didn’t work, at least back then. Still, it doesn’t suffice to link out to Wikipedia from time to time.

Linking out is a strategy you have to embrace holistically.

You link out to make people notice you.
You link out to get returning visitors who want more links.
You link out for Google to notice that you are a great resource, a hub, offering relevant links to all kinds of valuable resources.

This is what happened here on SEOptimise. It’s not just the great content we have. Other UK SEO blogs have great content as well, maybe even more in-depth content, but we offer a resource which is like a gate in many directions, while other blogs focus on making the readers stay longer on their own sites. We are not afraid to send you away because we know you will come back. Also we don’t hoard PageRank because we know it’s not been a real SEO metric for a few years.

Linking out also establishes credibility on the Web so that users ultimately come back to your site for more, even where they left via a link they’ve found on your site.

I’m not the only one to suggest that linking out is actually a modern SEO best practice. Check the following articles from renowned industry publications and experts for more opinions on linking out: