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marți, 21 august 2012

The SEO Project Management Jedi Challenge: May the seoPM Force Be With You

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 07:57 PM PDT

Posted by aleyda

Almost a month ago (time flies, doesn't it?) I had the opportunity to share a story at MozCon about SEO Project Management (seoPM) with guidelines to enhance the management of the SEO process and achieve more effective results. Since I know you're all quite busy and may need a reminder on the topic, I wanted to check in to see if you're really following the guidelines I shared... in a very fun way, of course. I present to you: an seoPM challenge!

Prepare yourself first with Yoda's seoPM advice from MozCon

For those who did not attend MozCon or skipped my SEO Project Management (seoPM) presentation on Friday morning (too much party the night before, perhaps?), take a look and prepare yourself for the seoPM Jedi challenge by checking out Yoda's seoPM advice:

Test your seoPM Force by taking the seoPM Jedi Challenge

Now that you've seen the seoPM guidelines shared at MozCon, our SEO stormtrooper consultant friend (who, at the end of the presentation, was already feeling the seoPM Force and knew he could be successful at it) invites us to take an seoPM Jedi Challenge to test our skills... Let's take it!

The seoPM Jedi Master Test
Do you want to save it, print it, or share it? You can download this image or a higher resolution one.

There may be additional seoPM guidelines to be followed, but these are the most important principles and tips shared during MozCon. I'll share additional seoPM guidelines in future episodes, along with challenges that you will be invited to take to keep your seoPM Jedi Master status.

My seoPM Jedi Challenge Results

As it is said in Spanish, I will preach with the example: After taking the tests the result I got is that I'm an seoPM Jedi Master.

Aleyda Solis - seoPM Jedi Master

Don't get me wrong, this result doesn't mean I haven't made seoPM mistakes. Remember that you need to answer according to you latest seoPM experience, so the status can change easily. This is intentional so that you always keep following the seoPM guidelines.

The truth is, I've experienced many different situations that I've learned from along the way. I've been doing SEO since 2007 and have had a variety of different roles since then. I've worked on the agency side as an SEO consultant and afterwards as the head of the SEO department. I've also been an In-House SEO and an external freelance SEO consultant.

As you imagine, most of the stories shared by our SEO stormtrooper consultant friend at MozCon are mine, too, in some way or another. Nonetheless, I can say that after I started following Yoda's guidelines (and that are tested in the seoPM Jedi challenge), the SEO projects I manage are more effective, my clients are happier, and, of course, I'm an even happier SEO:

Life with and without seoPM
Disclaimer: These photos were not taken exactly at the time when the described events happened... but I promise my reaction was very similar.

This doesn't mean that if you don't follow the seoPM guidelines, you won't be able to achieve sucessful seoPM projects, or if you do, your projects are going to be perfect and issue-free. However, I'm positive that if you take these guidelines, customize them to your situation, and follow them in your every day SEO work, you will achieve your results more effectively.

Now it's your turn: Share your seoPM Jedi test results and challenge an SEO friend

I hope that we all start taking these guidelines into consideration, identifying our own situations with them, and challenging ourselves and our SEO friends to follow them.

So, as I need to challenge another SEO to get this going... I want to challenge Gianluca to take the test, share his seoPM results (and experiences) with us, and then challenge another SEO (who hasn't taken the test before) to give it a try.

Here are the different seoPM challenge badges so you can publish them along your results:

Good luck with your seoPM Jedi Challenge tests. I look forward to learning about your results and stories!

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Announcing the 2012 SEO Industry Survey

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 01:55 AM PDT

Posted by randfish

Back in March of this year, SEOmoz ran an industry survey that saw 6,491 respondents provide detailed answers to 53 unique questions. The survey formally ran from March 21st to May18th. From independent consultants to agency SEOs to in-house marketers, we got to see responses from a wide swath of the industry's demographics. Individuals from more than 100 countries contributed (as you can see below).

See The Results!

Country of Residence for SEO Survey Takers

You can now see the results of this survey, including some excellent analysis by our very own Dr. Peter J. Meyers on the site.

Survey Screenshot

Note that on the right-hand column of the survey, you'll see each of the individual sections Pete's analyzed in the formal survey results. You can also find the complete results as well as those from 2010, which shows some fascinating differences.

But, Pete's not the only one who did some data analysis on the survey results :-) In preparation for my webinar with Dharmesh from Hubspot, I looked at something I've been curious about for a while - the differences in salary for in-house vs. agency/consultant marketers. I filtered to just the US/UK/Canada/Australia/NZ for these results, and found it fascinating:

In-house vs. agency salaries

The common wisdom is that marketers at agencies have lower compensation, but a greater ability to build their portfolio and skills for the future. I can't speak to the latter assumption, but I can say that the former seems accurate, at least from this data.

Two final notes - the first, please be aware that SEOmoz is not a professional surveying firm, so our methodology and question formats are likely inferior to those run by formal statisticians. And second, I'd like to give huge thanks to all the organizations who helped support the industry survey, including Outspoken Media, Search Engine Land, Distilled, Hubspot, Search Engine Journal, Techipedia, AimClear, Blueglass, Marketing Pilgrim, and Search Engine Watch.

Thanks to Supporting Organizations

Buried in the data are treasure troves of fascinating information, and I encourage anyone with curiousity to dig around in the full stats and report on any interesting findings. This data is welcome to be used by anyone for private or public consumption (so yes, you can include it in your internal reporting/slide decks if you'd like), but of course, we'd appreciate source citation.

See The Results of the 2012 Industry Survey

P.S. A very special thanks to Dr. Pete, Ashley, Devin, Erica, and Derric from Moz who went above and beyond to make this project happen (and apologies for our delay - funding+Mozcon+Followerwonk have made this a crazy few months!)

Super Secret Service Salad

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Super Secret Service Salad

Yesterday First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the first-ever Kids' "State Dinner" at the White House, welcoming 54 budding chefs -- all between the ages of 8 and 12 -- to a formal luncheon in the East Room. Each of the guests, along with their parents, submitted a healthy recipe that follows the nutritional guidelines of MyPlate, including a recipe for a "Super Secret Service Salad."

White House photographers were on hand to capture some behind the scenes action -- including interviews by White House chef Sam Kass.

See a gallery of the images they captured.

Google’s quest for “high-quality” sites – the role of content.

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Since Google released the Panda update in February last year, the importance of having high-quality content on your site has increased hugely.

In May 2011, Amit Singhal published a post aimed to help people build better quality websites. One of the most important points to take away from it was, as I’m sure you've guessed, having good-quality content. Here I'm going to go into detail over some of his points and explain what you really need to do if you want to rank well.

Authority

One of the key issues brought up is that of authority. The questions asked include whether the reader would trust the information being provided in the article, and whether the site is considered to be an authority on the topic being discussed.

In other words, is your website a credible place for this content? Obviously, if you specialise in car sales you're not going to write about gardens, but this point goes further than this. For example, if you're selling cars, then are you an appropriate place to post information on engine repairs and maintenance? Although the areas are related, they're not that closely linked. Therefore, this content isn't actually very relevant to your site. Content on the reliability of certain cars with certain amounts of mileage or of a certain age would be more appropriate. This is because your site has real knowledge of this area, whereas content on engine repairs would be better suited to a garage or engineering website.

This is backed up by the insistence that your content actually contains helpful specifics, rather than just generalities; that your content is written by an expert, or at least a knowledgeable enthusiast; and provides a comprehensive discussion of the topic it is covering. All of this is of course far easier to achieve if you and your company chose to produce content on subjects which you have real knowledge of.

To summarise: write about topics you and your company really know about and you should be able to hit all of these objectives with ease.

Set quality standards

Next, Google asks that you produce content that is readable. It asks you to produce content that is well-edited, grammatically accurate, and factually correct. It wants you to consider whether the piece could be printed in a magazine, or published in a book or encyclopaedia.

Basically, Google wants you to make sure you're producing pieces that actually have some value and which have had real effort put into their creation. They pointedly chastise mass-produced content which has not received the proper care and attention that quality articles require. So put some thought and attention into your content. Consider the value of each piece – could you get it published anywhere apart from the web? Make sure you take the time to thoroughly proof-read and edit everything – get rid of all typos and clean up sloppy presentation.

Google thinks content is important and valuable, so you need to start treating it as such; put some real time and effort into each and every piece you publish. Set yourself high standards and stick to them.

Provide real insight not just information

Finally, Google wants you to consider whether your content will mean anything to your readers. Is the information you're providing interesting and original? Does it offer an insightful analysis, new information, or a well-balanced debate on the topic? If not, then what's the point of it?

You need to make sure the content you're creating has a reason for being. There is no point producing content on a topic which has been done to death unless you're looking at it from an entirely new perspective or you're bringing fresh information to the table. You need to do this because in doing so you will encourage people to share it – something which Google values very highly. The best way to get your content recommended and passed on is to make it new, or helpful, or interesting, or preferably all three! So stop re-hashing old material and be innovative. One caveat though: don't be offensive. Although a bit of controversy can be great for getting people to read and share your article, Google warns you off creating anything offensive which could cause people to complain.

So that's it. That's what Google recommends and, really, it isn't that much to ask. They value content because internet users value content. All they want is for you to do the same. It's time to stop being lazy and stop churning out poorly written, badly researched, unhelpful, and irrelevant articles. Start putting some real effort into the content on your site and treat it like the valuable commodity it is. In doing so you should not only improve your rankings but also the real value of your site for the people who matter – the users. It's a win-win situation!

If you've got anything to add that I've missed, please feel free to include them within the comments below. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Image Credit: FindYourSearch

Seth's Blog : Crash diets and good habits

Crash diets and good habits

Crash diets don't work.

They don't work for losing weight, they don't work for making sales quota and they don't work for getting and keeping a job.

The reason they don't work has nothing to do with what's on the list of things to be done (or consumed). No, the reason they don't work is that they don't change habits, and habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.

If you want to get in shape, don't sign up for fancy diet this or Crossthat the other thing. No, the way to get in shape is to go to the gym every single day, change your clothes and take a shower. If you can do that every single day for a month, pretty soon you'll start doing something while you're there...

If you want to make sales quota, get in the habit of making more sales calls, learning more about your market and generally showing up. If you show up, with right intent, you'll start making sales. The secret isn't a great new pitch or a new pair of shoes. The secret is showing up.

Your audacious life goals are fabulous. We're proud of you for having them. But it's possible that those goals are designed to distract you from the thing that's really frightening you--the shift in daily habits that would mean a re-invention of how you see yourself.

Organizations can always benefit from better habits. Every day. Do that first.