miercuri, 15 mai 2013

Seth's Blog : Applications open for a short summer internship

 

Applications open for a short summer internship

I'm offering a short-term paid internship this summer. You'll be in my office, working with me and a tightly knit group to develop a brand new idea. Here are some details, the links to apply are at the end. Please feel free to forward to those that might be interested.

The first intern project happened more than eight years ago, and we built changethis.com, which, in the capable hands of 800ceoread, just published its 100th issue. This project has lauched and amplified dozens of bestsellers and even more important, truly valuable ideas to millions of people. Team members included Amit Gupta who went on to found Photojojo, the esteemed designer Phoebe Espiritu and FourSquare's Noah Weiss.

Then we built a team to create Squidoo, which to date has received more than a billion visits and paid more than $16,000,000 in royalties to charities and to our members. Squidoo's COO Corey Brown was/is part of that team, and so was Harper Reed, who went on to be the instrumental linchpin in Barack Obama's re-election.

Two years ago, the third intern project launched The Domino Project, which published a dozen bestsellers in a row. Successful graphic designer Alex Miles Younger and sales guru Lauryn "lil zig" Ballesteros were part of that team.

Apparently, it's time to do it again, and as usual, there are no guarantees. No guarantees that it will work, or even launch. I can promise that it'll be interesting.

You can find all the details on the gig on this page.

Please read the whole thing before applying, because creative rule breaking (or ignorance) of the application process doesn't work on this one. (No emails please!) Thanks for considering this one.

     

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Yin and Yang of Disavow

Yin and Yang of Disavow


Yin and Yang of Disavow

Posted: 14 May 2013 07:18 PM PDT

Posted by wilreynolds

Image Credit: Vermin

When Disavow first launched, many people felt like they were doing "Google's job." At first, I completely disagreed with that sentiment. I loved it. I needed disavow, and yes, Bing did get to it first! However, since Matt Cutts' announcement of Disavow at Pubcon to present day, I have started to change my tune a bit based on experiencing what I can only call disavow hell. I truly do understand Google's position on the tool, but I am thinking a lot of small business owners need more transparency, as they cannot battle what they are up against.

SEER recently took on a client for whom we have disavowed what feels like about 85% of their links. Their owner is an amazingly awesome woman whose business is getting hurt due to the efforts of her previous SEO firm. The firm left her business in a bad place. She was doing #RCS already, and had built a real business that helped people find solutions to the issues of her niche. She was doing content marketing and building assets that added value well before she employed an SEO firm. Instead of showing some discretion on their aggressive tactics, they slammed the gas and went full bore on the spam. Her business grew and she hired people, not knowing that her SEO firm was setting her up for failure.

At first, I was a big fan of disavow. Now that I am personally spending tons of time helping out on two clients affected negatively by the tool, I can't help but think...seriously, is the the best use of my time to help these clients succeed online? Instead of spending the same time strategizing on how to build assets that add value, I'm hunting down spammy link networks. Google, is this what you want me and the SEER Interactive team to be doing? After disavowing 5,800 domains and being declined again, I am starting to see this as a serious needle in a haystack. If it is a needle in a haystack for companies like SEER, can you imagine what it's like for the average small business owner?

Having submitted a few disavows and ending with them denied time and time again, I realized, man, this is a waste of time. However, we will keep at it because we'll never quit trying to help our clients succeed. Instead of the SEER team working on RCS and brainstorming on how to create valuable content that will add value (i.e. doing all the things Google says we should do), we are spending time trying to find link networks and things we don't know a ton about because we didn't build those crappy links to begin with.

We pitched a concept (to be shown at Mozcon, hopefully; buy your tickets now!) that got a client on several news stations (it was quite a rush seeing a SEER Idea on the 6:00 and 11:00 news, along with our CEO being interviewed), newspapers, and countless other sites, but we've minimized our work on it because our disavow requests for that client keep getting denied....you serious?? This is the best thing we've ever built, yet we are spending a portion of our time on disavow and trying to understand why one or two links somewhere is the tipping point over what we already disavowed. So we went nuclear, disavowing every link before SEER started with a DA under a certain level, that is not on blogspot.com style subdomains. Are we throwing out some of the good with the bad? Yup. But we want to get back to adding value and building things we can be proud of.

Google is giving spammers more business with disavow, not less

There are good people out there who are worried about their businesses, not just their rankings. These people will try to do what’s right to get back in Google's good graces, so they'll pay people to help them save their businesses. I know I would. Once they've decided to reach out for help, who are they going to go to? Probably the same types of people who built their crap link networks in the first place. Who knows how to remove spam links best, a spammer or a marketing agency?

Once again, the spammers get rewarded. Those who spammed the Internet spent their hours not creating value, but trying to create patterns in low-quality sites that Google wouldn't pick up on. It worked for years, and then suddenly, it didn't work anymore. Now the same people who created all the spam are the same ones these companies are relying on to find the patterns on how Google does it, since the companies who didn't do this stuff never spent their time architecting crappy links.

Disavow was needed. For the business owner in this example, she called and asked what's up the minute she realized these guys had hurt her business more than they helped. She had to spend countless hours away from building quality content and trying to grow her business in order to learn about link networks, and when she said, "Hey, can you guys remove these links you got?" her old firm charged her $12,000. If she declined to pay the price tag, they were holding her site ransom. If she agreed to the payment, she would be out 12k for link removal.

Ultimately, our business owner paid the fee. Two weeks later, disavow was announced, and - guess what - the old firm didn't remove even close to all the links. So again, I get the need for Disavow, but man, it also gets my team completely off what I'd like them to do. More importantly, it distracts my team from what Google would like them to do. Their time is taken away from building things that add value, and spent on figuring out how spam on the web used to work. This is definitely a skill I'd rather not be investing in, since we all know the shelf life of that skill is pretty limited.

Maybe someday Google will use Webmaster Tools as an understanding when a client moves to a new agency, consultant, etc. I'm not convinced that is the right solution, but I guess we need to start somewhere to figure out how we get away from spending time on spam. If you are building spam links (which would make you a spammer) or if you are spending time understanding spam to make disavow work (which is everyone else), it's a bad use of time for everyone.

Here are three big takeaways from what I've seen with my limited Disavow work:

1. Cut the bleeding, hardcore

This is the wrong time to get nitpicky about Disavowing links, especially if you have switched firms and 90% of what the old firm did was spam. Simply go into Webmaster Tools, pull the link report (with dates), and start Disavowing everything before the old firm started that has a low domain authority. It surprises me at how often people get picky.

I’d say you are better off over-Disavowing the links, and then go back when you have time and are out of the penalty to pick back out the ones you think you may have been too aggressive on. It's not a perfect solution, but this way, you get out of the penalty sooner rather than later.

2. Don't cry wolf (too much)

I have no proof of this, but I can only imagine that if you keep nibbling off one link at a time and submitting Disavows, Google may begin to get sick of it and might stop reviewing your requests as frequently.

I also remember that, when Disavow launched, the Google team was a bit worried that people would disavow the good links along with the bad. I have a sneaking suspicion that if you Disavow quality links, Google has ways of saying "you probably made a mistake and didn't mean that," especially when they compare the good links to their expansive list of bad links, link networks, etc.

3. Go do some real marketing!!!

You want rankings? You can't just stop doing the bad; you have to start doing the good! Put priority on doing the things Google wanted you to do all along. Reference the high quality stuff you've done in your re-consideration requests, and let Google know you are making real investments and turning over a new leaf.


So often when we talk about disavowing links, clients go…OMG well I’m going to lose some of my rankings… well, RIGHT BUDDY! When your rankings are propped up on fake marketing tactics and you haven’t done enough #RCS, then you are stuck with never having built real assets that attract real links. For the future of your business, you gotta start somewhere, and if your business isn't worth marketing in some way other than SEO, then you are probably the exact kind of site that Google doesn't want to rank well in most verticals.


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Celebrating "We the Geeks"

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
 

Celebrating "We the Geeks"

Tomorrow, the White House is kicking off "We the Geeks," a new series of Google+ Hangouts to highlight the future of science, technology, and innovation here in the United States.

We're covering topics like commercial space exploration, STEM education, and turning science fiction to science fact.

Learn more about "We the Geeks," and tune in tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama gestures during a meeting in the Oval Office, May 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama gestures during a meeting in the Oval Office, May 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:

Meeting with Mothers and Advocates for Our Children
In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to expand access to high-quality pre-school to every child in America.

President Obama Meets with Prime Minister David Cameron
The two leaders meet to discuss issues ranging from economic development to the unfolding conflict in Syria.

First Lady Michelle Obama Delivers the Commencement Address at Eastern Kentucky University
First Lady Michelle Obama celebrates a new class of graduates.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

9:45 AM: The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing

11:00 AM: The President delivers remarks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service WhiteHouse.gov/live

12:30 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney WhiteHouse.gov/live

12:30 PM: The President and the Vice President meet for lunch

2:30 PM: The Vice President meets with Prime Minister Ivica Dacic of Serbia

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates that the event will be live-streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live

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The ultimate content audit checklist

The ultimate content audit checklist

Link to SEOptimise » blog

The ultimate content audit checklist

Posted: 15 May 2013 02:30 AM PDT

I think it would be fair to say that Google's major algorithm updates in the last couple of years have seen us all asking ourselves some tough questions about the quality of what we're putting on the web. This soul-searching has seen many reform their link building habits, while others have seen Google's clamp-downs on web spam as an endorsement of the high-quality link building they'd been doing all along. But the focus hasn't just been on links: the Panda update in its various iterations has shown that high-quality on-site content is paramount. This has seen the necessary rise of the content audit, and as someone who has long been a stickler for top notch content, I thought I'd share with you the process I go through and the things I include when I audit a site. I'd be really interested to hear how yours differ from mine, so feel free to leave a comment and let me know about the processes you use and the things you look at!

The giant content audit spreadsheet – and why I don't use it

A question that often comes up when a client wants a content audit is what form it should take. Many consider a content audit to be a giant spreadsheet with every single URL listed, along with marks out of 10 for various quality metrics. Because of the sheer scale, this method often relies to an extent on automation, but that only gets you so far; a true assessment of content quality requires a human eye, and for bigger sites it's not practical to look through every single page. While the process of content auditing in this way certainly has its merits, the way I like to do it has more of a qualitative focus that I believe gives the client considerably more value.

Look at a representative sample

Most websites follow templates that ensure a uniform design throughout the site – or at least they should! This means that content can be split into content types – for example, homepage, service page, product description page, blog post, and so on. Each content type is there to fulfill its own purpose, and requires its own assessment as to how well it achieves its aims. So why waste time looking at every single URL on the site when the comments you're going to be making about one page in a particular category are likely to apply to the others in that content group?

I believe that the key to a good and actionable content audit is to look at a representative sample of a site's content, providing concrete observations and recommendations and exploring in depth the actual experience of people using the site. They are, after all, by far the most important consideration.

The big content audit checklist

I'll start with a disclaimer: every site is different. I'm not a believer in sticking rigidly to templates, and I typically use the headings below just as a starting point. I will often add or remove sections according to what's appropriate for the site I'm looking at.

So, here's what I would look at…

Analytics

This section looks at who uses the site, how they use it and what bits they visit more and less. Aspects I'd look at are:

  • Languages and countries – gaining an appreciation of the demographics of your visitors can help you understand how well your current site caters for your target audience. Who is your current target audience, and are your visitors who you expected? For example, if you're wanting to target customers in a particular country and that country isn't high on the list, it would be worth looking at how well your content meets the needs of people from that country; do you need to add extra content tailored specifically to that country, or perhaps add a translated version?
  • Mobile – what percentage of your audience accesses your site from a mobile or tablet? How well does your content perform on a mobile and is it worth introducing new content aimed specifically at mobile users – for example an app?
  • Engagement – looking at engagement metrics gives a rough understanding of how users interact with the site, though metrics such as bounce rate and time on site are notoriously tricky to draw conclusions from. This is why I would use them to look at relative popularity of pages rather than looking at the absolute figures.
  • Popular pages – for obvious reasons, identify the pages that get visited the most and least. If there are pages I know to be a key concern to the client that don't appear high on the list of most popular content, I'd want to identify why.
  • Search terms – looking at the paid search terms driving the most traffic can identify keywords worth optimising the site for, while organic search terms driving traffic give more of an indication of the current level of optimisation of the site. It's common to see mostly branded search terms in the top ten for an unoptimised site.

Trust factors and brand identity

It goes without saying that people will probably not give your website the time of day if it doesn't seem trustworthy. A strong brand identity is key to achieving a high level of professionalism and trustworthiness, and that means things like consistent use of design, styling, logos and fonts throughout the site.

But what other factors can improve the trustworthiness of your site? In addition to having a clean and professional design, here are some of the features I'd want to see included on a site to convey a trustworthy impression:

  • Credentials – does the site prominently display important industry accreditation and membership? Is it obvious what these mean?
  • Contact details – it should be easy for people to get in touch with your site, and it shows that there are real people behind the anonymity of the internet. Many people still prefer to speak to a real human rather than emailing or using a Help page.
  • Membership numbers – if you display on your site that you have millions of members or users, this shows potential customers that your site is popular, and therefore trusted by others.
  • Testimonials – these are another way of showing potential customers that others have successfully used and enjoyed your product/service. If photographs are used, make sure they're of real people – stock images just make the testimonial look fake.
  • Social media accounts – while social media arguably isn't for every business, people have come to expect businesses to be on Facebook and/or Twitter. Having prominent links to your social media accounts won't just encourage follows and likes; a regularly updated social media account with plenty of (two-way) interactions helps show your business to be up-to-date, embracing new forms of communication, and easy to contact.
  • Good English – the standard of English on a website is something that users won't notice if it is high quality – it should be one of many flawless aspects of the website that subconsciously give users an overall impression of quality and trustworthiness – but that they will notice immediately if it is poor. Typos and lapses in grammar are likely to be picked up on and will come across as unprofessional. Furthermore, if the copy itself feels laboured – for instance, using ten words where one would suffice – I'd be recommending a refresh.

trust factors

Amount of content

This can be a tricky one, because it's about balancing the needs of your users with that of search engines. You don't want to overwhelm your users by presenting them with a wall of copy or too many pages, but conversely if a page has very few words on it, Google will find it harder to understand what it's about and may assume that there's nothing there of value to users – so you'll find it harder to get that page ranking well. Typically, a balance can be struck by presenting the user with a reasonable amount of content formatted in a web-friendly way – i.e. using bullet points and subheadings to break the text up and make it easier to read.

The homepage is a prime candidate for thinner content. Of course you don't want too much copy getting in the way of a snazzy homepage design, but it's usually possible to add in some copy towards the bottom of the page that won't impact too much on the design. From an SEO perspective a minimum of 300 words is worth aiming for, but ultimately if more or less content than that is all that's needed to give your users the best experience, that's what matters most.

Content layout

What content does the user see immediately upon entering a page? Look at a selection of page types (homepage, service page, blog post, etc) and assess whether the most important aspects of each are visible immediately. Does the site have adverts, and if so, do they dominate the page? Google is known to penalise pages that have too much advertising above the fold, so this is to be avoided. Are key bits of information and calls to action immediately visible?

Homeserviceaboutblog

Navigation

Though it could be argued that this is more of a technical issue and therefore not a necessary thing to include in a content audit, navigation crosses into content territory in several ways. Firstly, it's important that users can find their way around your content as quickly and easily as possible. A content audit perhaps isn't the place for an in-depth site architecture appraisal, but it's good to highlight any issues users may be having with finding important content.

Secondly, the copy on the page can be used to highlight and complement the navigation by guiding users to the pages you most want them to visit. Is your site navigation aided by calls to action in the copy, or clearly labelled buttons?

Content quality, including web writing best practice

To a certain degree the observations falling under this section could be subjective – your view on whether content is good quality may differ from that of the client, for instance! So I would use this section to highlight any issues with the tone and substance of the copy, whether it does a good job of explaining products and services, and how well the design and copy guide users to take actions such as finding out more and buying.

Web writing best practice is another concept to mention here. People read websites differently to how they read books, and will often simply skim a page to get the gist of it rather than reading it in detail. This is particularly true on mobiles, when people may be reading on the move. This means that content needs to be easily 'scannable', with the text broken up with subheadings and bullet points to make it easier to read. Walls of text not conforming to best practice should be pointed out in the content audit.

Using a proper header tag structure is also important, with a single H1 for the title of the page and H2s, H3s and so on for progressively less important subheadings.

Multimedia content

A variety of media types – images, videos, audio etc – helps your site rank in universal search (where image and video results are pulled into the main search results) as well as enhancing user experience. Content such as videos or graphics is also more likely to get shared, which not only increases brand awareness, but also brings more traffic and links to your site. More on sharing later…

video

Meta data

An old but nevertheless still important SEO staple, meta data should be included in the content audit because it does form part of the content of the site – in fact, given that so many people find and access websites via search, your title tag and meta description may be the first thing they see. So make sure you give them a great first impression and stand out from the sea of other search results!

Title tags should of course be optimised for search engines, but should also make sense to users and give them a bite-size summary of what your site is about. The meta descriptions should be well-worded and enticing, summarising key selling points and including calls to action to encourage users onto your site. Meta descriptions aren't a ranking factor, but search terms do get highlighted in bold when they match a user's search query, so including keywords where it reads naturally will help your site seem more relevant to what the user is looking for.

Images and image optimisation

Good images inject life and interest into a site and can be used to form part of a uniform visual identity if used consistently throughout. Does the site make good use of images, and do they feel unique to the site? I've seen sites that just use cheesy stock photos throughout, which doesn't inspire confidence in users; it makes a site look as though it has something to hide, and any old spammer can populate a web template with a load of stock images.

Images should also be optimised to help them rank well in image search – that means having descriptive alt tags and filenames to help Google understand what an image is of. For instance, naming a photo of a beach with lots of meaningless letters and numbers won't help Google at all, but naming it 'couples' holidays in Barbados' will give it a much better chance of ranking for this search term in image search. And because image results are often pulled into the main SERPs, that may mean that your image appears above competitor search results even if your website doesn't.

Linking practices

Strong internal linking is as helpful to users as it is to search engines, so look at whether or not the pages on the site link contextually to other internal pages. For example, a travel site offering travel guides to different destinations could cross-reference specific holidays or flight information elsewhere on the site, and could have a section at the end linking to other destinations the reader might be interested in.

External linking should be considered as well, as it's thought to help Google establish your 'link neighbourhood' – are you linking to (ergo associated with) reputable sites or dodgy ones? Linking out to strong, authoritative sites is also likely to come across positively to users of your website by associating you with other organisations they may have heard of.

Shareable content

It's also important to think beyond the site itself and look at how 'shareable' the content on the site is. For many sites this could come in the form of a blog, which has the added benefit of giving your site fresh new content on a regular basis (Google loves fresh content by the way).

People have grown accustomed to sharing interesting or amusing things online via social media sites, and sharing can do wonders for brand recognition. So think about what data you have access to, and what resources you could provide, that might get people sharing. If you're a travel site, for example, video guides or handy checklists for different destinations would be useful, shareable content you could add. Infographics and white papers are other examples of shareable content that could work well depending on the niche your site operates in, but this is a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles and come up with some exciting content ideas tailored to your own audience.

Oh, and don't forget to make sharing easy by including social sharing buttons where appropriate – you can even ask or encourage users to share by offering them something in return (e.g. access to exclusive content, or entry into a competition).

blog 2

And finally…

As I said at the start, all sites are different, and will have their own peculiarities, strengths and weaknesses. Don't get too tied down by a template: feel free to go beyond it, add new sections, and get creative with the content suggestions!

What do YOU look at when you audit content? Do you think there's anything I've missed? Share your thoughts below or tweet me @RachelsWritings.

© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. The ultimate content audit checklist