Good governance is like great marketing--it takes the long view, and relentlessly focuses on delivering on agreed upon goals over time.
Politics, on the other hand, is more like a ping pong match, and, thanks to electronic media, it's getting faster when we'd be better off if it slowed down.
Those that work in politics are now addicted to today's emergency, whatever it is. It could be a world event, a faux scandal or merely something the other side said. They use it to fundraise, they use it to distribute talking points and they use it to get attention and score points on the opposition. And they use polls to keep score, daily.
It's practically impossible to get the attention or effort of people on a campaign unless you've got something urgent and imminent to discuss. This is no way to do serious marketing.
One side effect of the endless emergency is an insatiable need for cash. Clearly, money spent on campaigns is effective (particularly in depressing the vote for an opponent), but just as clearly, it doesn't scale. Twice as much money is not twice as effective. When the campaign falls in love with the combination of instant reaction plus unlimited fundraising, all strategy and leadership go out the window.
The problem with getting elected using emergency tactics is that it makes it harder than ever to govern for the long term.
The Penguin update sent a strong message that not knowing SEO basics is going to be dangerous in the future. You have to have the basics down or you could be at risk. Penguin is a signal from Google that these updates are going to continue at a rapid pace and they don't care what color your hat is, it's all about relevance. You need to take a look at every seemingly viable "SEO strategy" with this lens. What you don't know can hurt you. It's not that what you are doing is wrong or bad, the reality is that the march towards relevance is coming faster than ever before. Google doesn't care what used to work, they are determined to provide relevance and that means big changes are the new normal.
eHow / Demand Media after the Panda update
All that said doing great SEO is an achievable goal, make sure you are taking these steps.
1. Understand your link profile
This is essential knowledge post Penguin. The biggest risk factors are a combination of lots of low quality links with targeted anchor text. There seems to be some evidence that there is a new 60% threshold for matching anchor text but don't forget about the future, I recommend at most 2 rankings focused anchor texts out of 10. The key metrics I look at for this are:
Anchor text distribution
The link type distribution (for example, article, comment, directory, etc.)
Domain Authority and Page Authority distributions
The goal here is to find out what is currently going on and where you should be going. Compare your site with the examples below.
Tools for this:
For anchor text Open Site Explorer gives you an immediate snapshot of what's going on while MajesticSEO and Excel can be better at digging into some of the really spammy links.
For link type analysis I use Link Detective but it seems to be down at the moment (please come back!).
UNNATURAL link type profile
2. Learn what makes a good link
Great links:
Come from respected brands, sites, people and organizations
Exist on pages that lots of other sites link to
Provide value to the user
Are within the content of the page
Aren't replicated many times over on the linking site
Those are lofty requirements but there is a lot of evidence that these high value links are really the main drivers of a domain's link authority. At the 1:00 mark Matt Cutts talks about how many links are actually ignored by Google:
That's not to say there isn't wiggle room but the direction of the future is quite clear, you have no control over how Google or Bing values your links and there's plenty of evidence that sometimes they get it wrong. The beauty of getting great links is that they aren't just helping you rank, they are VALUABLE assets for your business SEO value aside. At Distilled this was one of the primary ways we built our business, it's powerful stuff.
3. Map out your crawl path
This is a simple goal but it can be very difficult for larger sites. If it's really complex and hard to figure out then it's going to be hard for Google to crawl. There are few bigger wins in SEO than getting content that wasn't previously being indexed out there working for you.
Sitemaps unfortunately can only help you so much in terms of getting things indexed. Furthermore, putting the pages that are the most important higher up in the crawl path lets you prioritize which pages get passed the most link authority.
4. Know about every page type and noindex the low value ones
I have never consulted on a website that didn't have duplicate or thin content somewhere. The real issue here is not that duplicate content always causes problems or a penalty but rather if you don't understand the structure of your website you don't know what *could* be wrong. Certainty is a powerful thing, knowing that you can confidently invest in your website is very important.
So how do you do it?
A great place to start is to use Google to break apart the different sections of your site:
Start with a site search in Google
Now add on to the search removing one folder or subdomain at a time
Compare this number you get to the amount of pages you expect in that section and dig deeper if the number seems high
Note: The number of indexed pages that Google features here can be extremely inaccurate; the core idea is to reveal areas for further investigation. As you go through these searches go deeper into the results with inflated numbers. Duplicate and thin content will often show up after the first 100 results.
5. Almost never change your URLs
It's extremely common to change URLs, reasons like new design, new content management systems, new software, new apps... But this does serious damage and even if you manage it perfectly the 301 redirects cut a small portion of the value of EVERY single link to the page. And no one handles it perfectly. One of my favorite pieces of software Balsamiq has several thousand links and 500+ linking root domains pointed at 404s and blank pages. Balsamiq is so awesome they rank their head terms anyway but until you are Balsamiq cool you might need those links.
If you are worried that you have really bad URLs that could be causing problems Dr. Pete has already done a comprehensive analysis of when you should consider changing them. And then you only do it once.
6. Setup SEO monitoring
This is an often overlooked step in the process. As we talked about before if your content isn't up and indexed any SEO work is going to go to waste. Will Critchlow has already done a great job outlining how to monitor your website:
Watch for traffic drops with Google Analytics custom alerts
SEOmoz's Google Analytics hook formats landing pages sending traffic in an easy graph
7. Embrace inbound marketing
To me inbound marketing is just a logical progression from SEO, thinking about your organic traffic in a vacuum really just doesn't make sense. Dedicate yourself to improving your website for your users and they will reward you, Balsamiq which I mentioned earlier is a perfect example of this. I guarantee you they have done little to no SEO and yet they rank first for their most important keywords and have a Domain Authority of 81. How did they do it? Less features.
So what does that really mean? Balsamiq had a rigorous dedication to what their customers really wanted. That's really good marketing, smart business and intelligent product design all in one. Remember the future is all about relevance to your users, if you aren't actively seeking this you will get left behind. There is no excuse anymore there are plenty of proven examples of making seemingly boring page types fascinating and engaging.
Want to learn more?
If you need more high impact changes to your SEO check out the topic list for SearchLove San Francisco, it's the first time Distilled is going to be doing a conference on the West Coast.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
Over the weekend, the President traveled to Camp David for the annual G8 Summit before heading to Chicago to host the NATO Summit, a gathering of leaders from the 28 member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After the NATO working dinner, the President took a few minutes to throw around a football on Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears.
President Barack Obama throws a football on the field at Soldier Field following the NATO working dinner in Chicago, Illinois, May 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Tonight in Joplin
Nearly a year ago, devastating tornadoes ravaged the Joplin, Missouri, area, and the resilience of the Joplin community in the face of tragedy has continued to inspire the country. Tonight, the President will travel to Joplin, to speak at the Joplin High School Commencement Ceremony.
Wrapping Up the G8 Summit at Camp David G8 leaders gather at Camp David to address major global economic, political, and security challenges, including energy and climate change, food security and nutrition, Afghanistan’s economic transition and transitions taking place across the Middle East and North Africa.
Putting Twitter’s "Do Not Track" Feature in Context Twitter announces it will support a new feature in web browsers that gives users better internet privacy protection, an important step that's part of a larger Obama Administration strategy to encourage more consumer privacy protections online.
Today's Schedule
All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
10:00 AM: The President participates in an International Security Assistance Force meeting on Afghanistan
12:55 PM: The President takes part in an International Security Assistance Force family photo
2:20 PM: The President and NATO Secretary General host a Partners Meeting
4:30 PM: The President holds a press conference
6:05 PM: The President departs Chicago, IL en route Joplin, MO
7:30 PM: The President arrives Joplin, MO
9:15 PM: The President delivers remarks at the Joplin High School Commencement Ceremony
10:20 PM: The President departs Joplin, MO en route Washington, DC
12:35 AM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews
Being judged is uncomfortable. Snap judgments, prejudices, misinformation... all of these, combined with not enough time (how could there be) to truly know you, means that you will inevitably be misjudged, underestimated (or overestimated) and unfairly rejected.
The alternative, of course, is much safer. To be ignored.
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