Central Perk

marți, 23 octombrie 2012

How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 02:06 PM 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.

How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal

Want to know how to get a link from the Wall Street Journal?

No ... I'm not talking about dropping some dopey, no-followed article comment or some black-hat trickery - those schemes don't count for anything and will probably land you in the Google SEO jail.

I'm talking about landing a real, legitimate editorial link from one of the most trusted and highest authority websites on the planet – it's an SEO's (or any marketer's) dream come true!! Sounds impossible?

It's not!

In my content marketing case study today, I’ll describe in detail exactly how my team and I recently did just that!

But first - this post reads best with the mission impossible theme song playing in the background, so, cue the Mission Impossible music!

1. Begin With the End in Mind

Every great content marketing operation starts with an objective. For this mission, I set a high bar. I wanted to try to acquire:

Real, editorial links from the WSJ. But not just any link. Ideally, links in an article that:
- In some way mentioned WordStream (my company) so that we could get a bit of media exposure out of this effort
- Links to both our homepage and contained to a deep page on our site with relevant anchor text.
Get links from least 500 other high value, unique business and IT publications, like Fox Business, the Motley Fool, or CNET, etc.
Have the story go viral on Social Media Networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Generate a huge spike in overall website traffic that month
Create a 10% uplift in our overall steady-state traffic from SEO

With these seemingly impossible mission goals clearly defined, we realized that we'd need super-viral-grade content – something new and exciting, as well as a methodological plan to succeed!

Your Mission, should you choose to accept, is to acquire a link from the Wall St. Journal

Your Mission, should you choose to accept, is to acquire an editorial link from the Wall St. Journal!

2. Intelligence Gathering

The Wall Street Journal is not just any old news organization – it’s the finest business news organization on the planet!!

Therefore we would need to create a story more powerful than the typical 'how to' or 'X ways to succeed at Y' kinds of articles that we usually run on our blog. Those angles are great for daily blog content, but are hardly newsworthy of the Wall St. Journal, and just not the right tool for this ambitious content marketing mission!

We started our intelligence gathering effort by closely analyzing the objectives and by reviewing the kinds of articles the Wall St. Journal had covered in the past, in order to get a clear idea of the kind of content that we’d need to develop.

To achieve our lofty objectives, it was determined that we would need content that was:

Easy to Understand – We search marketers write about all sorts of dorky shop-talk about this signal or that metric. But since +99.99% of the readership of the Wall St. Journal aren’t search marketers, our story would have to be easily understandable to a broader audience of business people.
Unique – Our content would have to be based on new, original data and new insight. You cannot get the attention of the staff of the prestigious Wall St. Journal merely by rehashing old stuff that is already out there.
Newsworthy – new and unique is necessary but not sufficient. But is it newsworthy? Is the content timely in some way, such that it might merit coverage by the world’s most powerful business newspaper?
Easily Sharable – We would illustrate the key takeaways of our content in the form of an infographic, to enable easy sharing and make the content more visually appealing.

planning our content marketing operation

Planning our Content Marketing Operation...

3. Gear-Up!

In order to achieve our mission we would need the right gear for the job.

Our big idea was to conduct original research into what industries contributed to Google Revenues. We thought that this idea was both relevant to our core business (search marketing) yet sufficiently generalized to be relevant to the business readers of the Wall St. Journal.

Last year, Google made $37.9 Billion in revenues, of which 95% came from advertising. But Google doesn’t provide detailed insight into exactly what industries and companies make up all that money. So, we thought it might be interesting if we could provide an answer!

But how the heck are we supposed to know where Google made their money from if they don’t share that information?!

At WordStream, we have access to a ton of search marketing data that nobody else does, for example:

Our Free Keyword Tool which consists of over 1-trillion search queries – using this data, I can model what people were searching for in 2011.
Our AdWords Grader has collected some AdWords data including average cost per click data across different industries, etc.

Using this data, along with our proprietary keyword classification technologies, and other data available on the internet (such as spyfu, etc.), it would be possible to develop a fairly sophisticated data model to figure out what people were searching for in 2011, and how much revenue Google generated for clicks on searches in different industries, such as “Travel and Tourism” or “Finance and Insurance” and many other industries.

But our content was still in need of a newsworthy angle. Since Google was announcing their 2011 year-end financial results on January 19th, it was decided that we would have to conduct and publish our data analysis within a day or two of the official Google 2011 earnings announcement. Our content would explain where all Google's money came from!

Finally, we partnered with my colleague, Mr. Brian Wallace of NowSourcing and his crack team of infographic design aces to convert my data into a nice infographic that illustrated the Google Earnings data, in order to make it more visually appealing and easily sharable. Here's what it looked like (Click to Enlarge)

In a nutshell, we had developed content that was easily understandable to business readers, unique, newsworthy and sharable –perfect for our mission!

content marketing gear

Using the Right Gear (Content) for the Mission!

4. Mission Execution

Having set our goals, put a plan in place, and developing the right tools for the job, all that was left was to execute! We published our infographic just days after Google’s 2011 year-end earnings announcement.

And, as you probably expected, we were indeed successful in getting coverage of our story in the Wall Street Journal!!

Here's a snapshot of what that looked like:

And we also got crap-ton of coverage from many other leading news organizations, including coverage in: Wired, CNET, Fox Business, The New York Times, Business Insider, Inquisitr, The Guardian, Inc Magazine – too many to list out. In total we counted over 600 of the world's leading news sites linked to our Google Earnings article, thanks in part to a domino effect of link building!

And the article spread internationally, too. We found pick-ups from news organizations in Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, and dozens of other countries!

The story went viral on Social Media Networks – our article and infographic racked up a combined:

2491 Twitter tweets
1443 Facebook Likes
554 Google +1’s
697 LinkedIn Shares
Lots of traction on sites like Reddit, Stumble, etc.

We think that from an SEO perspective, the social shares are just as valuable as the link haul that we made off with!

All in, we estimate that nearly 1 million people saw our story, and we were fortunate to have achieved our all the goals that we set out to achieve.

Content Marketing Mission Accomplished

Content Marketing Mission Accomplished!

5. Mission Debriefing

Every time we do a content marketing project it’s a learning experience, so I’d like to share with the SEOmoz community, a few key ideas we learned from this time around!

In my example, I was using interesting data that we had at WordStream to develop some unique content. Now you might be thinking to yourself: what the heck do I do if I don’t have access to a trillion-keyword database or other proprietary ideas to draw original ideas from?

Here’s what you do: Think about what’s unique and differentiating about your business and/or your customers – what kinds of trends are you seeing, what’s changing, then try to measure that. Every company must have something unique about themselves – start brainstorming ideas from there!

Another big learning we stumbled on was that the big media outlets really love brands! The more you can mention major companies in your story, the more likely you will succeed. For example, we included paid search advertising spend data for big name companies in each industry (see screenshot below) and this greatly broadened the appeal of our content. The reporter at the Wall St. Journal and many other news outlets reported on rivalry between brands.

Finally, don’t feel bad if you put in a lot of effort and your plan doesn’t quite come together. I definitely have had my share of content creation efforts that went absolutely nowhere. And sometimes you get incredibly lucky. Just keep at it, try to figure out what went wrong and plan to do things better the next time!

So there you have it. You can get a link from the WSJ, or New York Times, or whatever big news outlet you can dream of. No special tricks or hacks, just a lot of hard work, including planning, research, real content development, and executing on a plan, and of course, a bit of luck!

About The Author

Larry Kim is the Founder & CTO of WordStream, a provider of software & services for managing PPC. Larry helps out in both the Product and Marketing departments at WordStream.

He can be found on Twitter or Google+.

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!

Draw Roger Contest

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 03:43 AM PDT

Posted by Joel Day

Howdy SEOmoz fans! Do you know what time it is? It's time to learn...

How to draw Roger!

We sat down with everyone's favorite Art Director, Derric Wise, and had him show us (and you!) how to draw Roger. It was truly a life-changing and inspirational time for everyone involved.

We can't think of a better way to celebrate our newfound knowledge than giving you the chance to draw your own Roger, along with the chance to win some awesome SEOmoz swag.

The Draw Roger contest is super simple: watch the video, draw Roger, send in your drawing, and win prizes!

The rules:

Have fun with it. Remember to keep it PG.
Any age can enter! We have prizes for anyone ages one day to 100 years old.
Try to get your whole family to participate.
All entires must be submitted by 9:00 PM PST on October 28th.
Your file name should be formatted as such: {First name}{Last Initial}{City}. For example, If Roger did a self portrait (how meta), his file name would be: RogerMSeattle.png
We may use your entry online!

Once you have your drawing scanned or photographed, send it in to DrawRoger@seomoz.org.

You may need a few things to follow along with the totorial below, including:

Derrics booze

Step by step drawing tutorial

Draw Roger 1

I know I'm practically an expert now, so the process should look something like this:

I'm very excited to see your submissions. Feel free to share your excitement in the comments below. Happy drawing, Mozzers!

Letters to the President

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Letters to the President

Every day, people from all over the United States write to the White House — to describe what life is like in their communities, ask questions, and express both triumphs and frustrations. And every afternoon, the White House Correspondence Office packages ten of those letters for President Obama to read. It's part of how he keeps in touch with what's going on around the country.

Watch the story of how these ten letters reach the President.

Seth's Blog : Everybody knows everything

Everybody knows everything

William Goldman famously pointed out that before Hollywood releases a picture, nobody knows anything about how it's going to do. It's such a black art that there are no real clues, yet every self-important exec acts as though he's an expert. It's easy to pretend expertise when there's no data to contradict you.

The internet and the connected economy turn much of that on its head. Now, in many fields, you have to assume that everyone knows (or can easily know) everything.

Relying on the ignorance of a motivated audience isn't a long-term strategy.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 22 octombrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Obama Slashes Four Hours Off Definition of "Full-Time" Employment; Further Explaining Surge in Part-Time Employment
Wholesale Price Deflation Hits China's Factories
Italy 2013 Countdown: Rescue Me
Seamless Easing; Japan "Falling Behind" in Monetary Stimulus, Complains Economy Minister; Humorous Irony of the Day

Obama Slashes Four Hours Off Definition of "Full-Time" Employment; Further Explaining Surge in Part-Time Employment

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:11 PM PDT

The BLS Glossary defines full-time workers as "Persons who work 35 hours or more per week".

For monthly reporting, the BLS defines part-time as "those who worked 1 to 34 hours during the survey reference week". With that wording, I am not precisely sure where 34.1 or 34.5 hours fit.

Interestingly, the Obamacare mandate says Anyone Who Works 30-Hour Week Is Now 'Full-Time'

A little-known section in the Obamacare health reform law defines "full-time" work as averaging only 30 hours per week, a definition that will affect some employers who utilize part-time workers to trim the cost of complying with the Obamacare rule that says businesses with 50 or more workers must provide health insurance or pay a fine.

"The term 'full-time employee' means, with respect to any month, an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week," section 1513 of the law reads. (Scroll down to section 4, paragraph A.)

If an employer has 50 or more "full-time employees" and does not offer health insurance, it must pay a penalty per employee for each month it does not offer coverage.

Lookback Period Three Months To One Year

The IRS has a publication on Determining Full-Time Status for Purposes of Shared Responsibility for Health Coverage. The key to explaining the recent jump in part-time employment is found in the look-back period.

Under the look-back/stability period safe harbor method, an employer would determine each employee's full-time status by looking back at a defined period of not less than three but not more than 12 consecutive calendar months, as chosen by the employer (the measurement period), to determine whether during the measurement period the employee averaged at least 30 hours of service per week.

Common sense would dictate employers look back the minimum time (three months), as opposed to a year.

Thus, any employer in his right mind would reduce the hours someone worked from say 34 to something like 25 or 28, just to make sure the average hours worked was under 30.

If a lot of corporations did that, and a lot people had reduced hours, then corporations would have had to hire more workers to keep the same total number of hours.

Indeed there was a massive surge in part-time employment (+582,000) in October that spawned many conspiracy theories.

As noted in September Jobs +114,000; Unemployment Rate 7.8%; Part-Time Workers +582,000; Initial Reaction and Election Impact, the entire .3 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate was based entirely on a surge in part-time employment.

Thus, it's looking more-and-more likely that Obamacare is a healthy chunk of the explanation.

Acceleration of Trend

Many people emailed me that Obamacare did not start the push to part-time employment. Fair enough, but I never said it did.

However, Obamacare did accelerate the trend. Moreover, it will now reduce the number of hours part-timers work.

The upside is more people will be working, and there is benefit to that even if it does not reflect the true state of unemployment or the economy.

Obamacare Employment Recap

I have written about this issue three times recently. Here is a recap.

How to Reduce Unemployment

It will be interesting to see if the BLS changes its standard from over 34 hours to 30 hours or more for full-time work.

As an aside, it would be easy enough to reduce unemployment to zero. All the government need do is hire everyone in the country who does not have a job to work one hour per week at minimum wage.

Voilà! We would have "full employment" in a jiffy.

If that seems too radical, the administration can always try dropping the measure of full-time employment to 21 hours while pitching the resultant drop in unemployment as "Good news! Half-time is now full-time."

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

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
Click on Image to Learn More

Wholesale Price Deflation Hits China's Factories

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:23 PM PDT

Bloomberg reports China's Factories Losing Pricing Power in Earnings Threat.

Chinese factories are losing pricing power in the worst wholesale-cost deflation since 2009, signaling corporate earnings may deteriorate further and putting a damper on global inflation pressures.

Steelmaker China Oriental Group Co. (581) says falling prices are wiping out profits, while Yunnan Copper Industry Co. (000878) cited the declines for a third-quarter loss. The producer-price index (SHCOMP) fell 3.6 percent in September from a year earlier and may stay negative until the second half of 2013 without large stimulus, according to Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.

With the U.S. reporting the longest stretch in three years that Chinese imports have gone without a price increase, the trend also gives policy makers around the world more room for easing to support faltering global growth. Sluggish earnings growth may prompt the government to reduce corporate taxes to aid earnings and help boost spending after China's expansion slowed for a seventh quarter.

"Reduced inflation pressure should expand the space for policy makers to take pro-growth actions in their countries," said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho in Hong Kong. Chinese officials are likely to reduce banks' reserve requirements ahead of a Communist Party congress next month, said Shen, who formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

Falling earnings have weighed on Chinese stocks this year. The nation's benchmark gauge, the Shanghai Composite Index, has declined 3 percent in 2012, heading for the third straight annual drop.

Cure Is Time and Price

The cure is time and price, not more misguided monetary stimulus or more infrastructure spending.

Yet, not unexpectedly, I counted six sentences in the above article from at least four different analysts or government figures calling for more stimulus of some sort.

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

Italy 2013 Countdown: Rescue Me

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 02:20 PM PDT

There is an interesting article in El Mundo by Fabrizio Goria regarding the escalation of problems in Europe. Via Google Translate please consider a few snips from Italy 2013 Countdown.

After Spain, Italy. Let us not deceive risk premiums are going down these days.

The country is torn by taxes. In one year, VAT rose two percentage points, from 20 to 22%. And the contraction of consumption has been very strong. In a recent IPSOS poll, 68% of Italians admitted spending less on food. And, according to the latest government budget, local politicians have been "invited" to turn off the lights of cities from 2200 hours to spare. A measure that had seen only during the Second World War and during the oil crisis of the 70s.

The biggest risk for Italy lies in the elections next year. Berlusconi's party, the People of Freedom, dissolved like sugar because of factional power struggles. The Democratic Party, the center-left is still no clear leader.

It is, then, Beppe Grillo, founder of the Movement comedian 5 Stars, which continues to garner consensus. In fact, his movement is second in Italy, behind the Democratic Party and ahead of the People of Freedom. Antieuro, vulgar populist, the modus operandi of Grillo is considered by political pundits as the antithesis of Monti. In any case, more and more Italians who want to Grillo in Parliament.

Monti's government keeps repeating that the end of the recession will be held throughout 2013. So say the Treasury and the Bank of Italy. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the opposite. After a contraction of around 2.5% during 2012, it is possible that even in 2013 there is still a recession more than two percentage points. All with a debt on its way to 130% of GDP. Furthermore, according to the IMF, the prospects are not very hopeful: Italy has a 95% chance that in 2017, public debt remains between 120 and 130% of GDP, and only 5% chance of getting a reduction below 105%.

These figures, however, do not show well enough what is happening. According to Morgan Stanley, in 2013, Italy will gross issuance of public debt in the amount of 401,000 million euros, with a redemption of 355,000.

If 2001 was the year of Greece, the 2012 is Spain. And 2013 will be to Italy. Once Madrid has asked the rescue, international investors will press Italy. Too much debt, too much spending, recession. There seems no alternative to call for help.

Rescue Me

Note: I could not get Google translate to work directly on the link. However, Google could translate blocks of text.

It is going to be interesting to see how any country can be rescued when Angela Merkel placed more roadblocks on banking union.

"There will not be any retroactive direct recapitalization," Merkel told a news conference. "If recapitalization is possible, it will only be possible for the future, so I think that when the banking supervisor is in place we won't have any more problems with the Spanish banks, at least I hope not."

The chancellor said the supervisory system would have to be effective and the euro zone would have to set up a bank resolution fund to which the banks would contribute if there was to be any direct capital assistance to troubled banks.

Merkel denied that the obstacles were intended to avoid any payments having to be approved by the German parliament before the 2013 election, saying the idea had never crossed her mind.

Playing politics would not cross Merkel's mind? No one can possibly believe that.

Regardless, Greece and Spain are screaming "rescue me", but Spain wants a "no strings attached" rescue without austerity conditions.

For now anyway, and likely up to the German election, Merkel says no dice for Spain. Moreover, 2013 is around the corner and Italy is coming right up with gross public debt issuance in the amount of 401 billion euros and 355 billion in refinancing.

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

Seamless Easing; Japan "Falling Behind" in Monetary Stimulus, Complains Economy Minister; Humorous Irony of the Day

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 08:39 AM PDT

If you are in need of a good laugh today, please note Japan's economy minister bitterly complains "Japan is falling behind on monetary stimulus" while simultaneously pointing out the "risk of another credit-rating downgrade" as if more stimulus would make matters better.

Where do they find they guys?

Japan's Exports Drop 10.3 Percent

In related news, Japan Exports Tumble 10%, BOJ to Conduct "Seamless" Easing.

Japan's exports fell the most since the aftermath of last year's earthquake as a global slowdown, the yen's strength and a dispute with China increase the odds of a contraction in the world's third-largest economy.

Shipments slid 10.3 percent in September from a year earlier, leaving a trade deficit of 558.6 billion yen ($7 billion), the Finance Ministry said in Tokyo today.

Economy Minister Seiji Maehara pressed the Bank of Japan for more action yesterday, saying the nation is "falling behind" in monetary stimulus and is at risk of another credit-rating downgrade.

"There's a high chance that Japan's economy will have two consecutive quarters of contraction through December," said Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief economist at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo. "The slump in advanced nations is spreading to emerging economies."

The decline in shipments, exacerbated by a spat with China over islands in the East China Sea, was the biggest since May last year, when the country was rebuilding supply chains wrecked in the March earthquake and tsunami.

Shipments to China, the nation's largest export market, slid 14.1 percent from a year earlier. Exports to the European Union fell 21.1 percent, while those to the U.S. rose 0.9 percent. Auto shipments to all markets dropped 14.6 percent.

In a speech in Tokyo today, BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa vowed to conduct "seamless" monetary easing as the Japanese economy is "leveling off."

"Seamless Easing"

Inquiring minds might be wondering "What the hell is seamless easing?" (as opposed to good old-fashioned QE).

It's a good question, and one I cannot answer for sure, but I very much suspect Governor Shirakawa is simply adding superfluous words to make it sound important, so as to appear as if the BOJ is not impotent (which of course it is).

I can however, point out the sheer madness of global competitive currency debasement. In that regard, it's actually a good thing to be "falling behind".

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

marți, 23 octombrie 2012

How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal

How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal

1. Begin With the End in Mind

2. Intelligence Gathering

3. Gear-Up!

4. Mission Execution

5. Mission Debriefing

About The Author

How to draw Roger!

The rules: