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miercuri, 31 decembrie 2014

The Best of the Best: Celebrating the Top 10 of the Moz Top 10 for 2014

Posted: 30 Dec 2014 04:14 PM PST

Oh no, another year-end roundup! But before you click away, let me sell you a little on why this is the roundup you actually want to read.

You see, to compile the Moz Top 10 over the last year, we probably read 50 or more articles EACH WEEK, that's around 100 articles for every issue. We then spent innumerable hours curating and culling until we could share with you the very best of those articles in the bi-weekly Top 10.

So this is not just another listicle. This article is in fact the distillation of the very best content from all over the interwebs for the past year that has anything to do with digital marketing. Basically, we read 2,600 (or so) articles so you don't have to.

What does "best" mean?

There's no formula for what makes an article Top-10 worthy. We look for the best content of each two week period and then try and winnow and fit it until each newsletter contains just the right balance of digital marketing tips, tricks, analysis, and inspiration.

We work to reach beyond SEO and find articles that will help people who specialize in content, social, design, UX, and more broaden their skill set and understand the work their marketing compatriots engage in. The mix and style changes as the author of this newsletter changes. I'm biased toward content marketing, Cyrus loves SEO. Trevor's a sucker for a journalistic slant.

But whoever is writing the latest edition is trying to find that perfect balance so you come away from the newsletter having found at least one article that teaches you something new, changes the way you think about marketing, or makes your job a little easier.

We look for articles by authors new and old that are well written, well illustrated, and comprehensive. Sometimes we publish something because it's a really good resource or because it says the thing that needs to be said.

Some pieces make the Top 10 because they are heart-achingly eloquent. And sometimes we include a little something fun, playful, or easy on the eyes (but still educational) at the end to finish your day off right.

Then news breaks (ahem, Google) and we reconfigure it all.

The Top 10 of the Top 10

For the Top 10 of the Moz Top 10, we could have gone with the most newsworthy content—articles that claim some tactic is dead or some era is over, but Search Engine Land already did that, so I wanted to take a different approach.

Instead, I chose the articles from 2014 that endure. Below you'll find articles that continue to inspire, how-tos and guides so comprehensive they deserve a revisit, and, yes, even a few tips and tricks that you should really get to. Without further ado, here are the best of the best…

1. Life is a Game. This is Your Strategy Guide

If you can master life, all that marketing stuff is a cake walk. Level up in your day-to-day with this thoughtful, comprehensive, and gorgeous guide from Oliver Emberton.

2. Announcing the All-New Beginner's Guide to Link Building

Paddy Moogan knows a thing or two about link building, and here he's teamed up with some folks at Moz to turn all of that information into an easy-to-follow yet comprehensive guide. I had no part in this project, so I can safely tell you I <3 the Zelda references.

3. No Words Wasted: A Guide to Creating Focused Content

From getting customer interviews right to nailing content promotion, this massive guide from Distilled covers everything you need to know about content strategy. I learn something new (or rediscover something I should never have forgotten) every time I read it.

4. Micro Data & Schema.org Rich Snippets: Everything You Need to Know

If you don't know what micro data are and you haven't figured out what to do with Schema.org, your content marketing is missing a crucial element for SERP success. BuiltVisible to the rescue with this amazing and easy-to-follow guide.

5. The Beginner's Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization

If you suspect there's a blockage in your sales funnel, it's time to think about CRO. This guide from Qualaroo will tell you everything you need to know to start pinpointing (and fixing) your barriers to conversion.

6. 2014 Industry Survey Results

A survey so big we can only do it once every two years. Peek at salaries, tools, and trends to compare where the digital marketing industry was at the beginning of 2014 to where you are now for a peek at what the future may hold.

7. UX Crash Course: User Psychology

Composed of 31 lessons, this online "course" will help you understand user motivation and how you can use psychology to massively improve your user experience.

8. A Geek's Guide to Gaming The Algorithms

Sometimes looking at information from a slightly different angle makes it easier to digest. In this delightful piece, Ian Lurie teaches us when it's okay to game the algorithms at the same time as he's spelling out, in plain language, what each algorithm update was really about.

9. The Ultimate List of IFTTT Recipes for Marketers

Favorite part of this amazingly detailed post from SEER? The fact that it starts from a user's perspective. So whether you want to "stalk your competitors' stocks" or "keep track of industry meetups," there's an answer (in the form of an IFTTT recipe) here for you.

10. The Rich Snippets Algorithm

So much changed in the realm of rich snippets last year. AJ Kohn delves into the relationship between those rich snippets and knowledge graph results. It's a heady post that just might offer some interesting insight into the future of SERPs.

Sign up for the Moz Top 10

Like what you see? Want us to read all the articles while you peruse a summary of the most important things you need to know?

After you click that big red button, you'll be taken to the Moz Top 10 page and asked to enter your email and hit "subscribe." At that moment we'll put you on the list for the very next edition, currently scheduled for January 13.

Submit to the Moz Top 10

And if you're someone who's writing Top-10-worthy content and we just haven't found you yet, we want to read what you've got. So please send us your suggestions. Each edition of the Moz Top 10 only covers content from the most recent two-week period, so send that link while the content is still fresh.

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!

Seth's Blog : A year of posts

A year of posts

More than 3,000,000 people visited this blog in 2014, and, noting that popular is not the same as best, here are some of my most clicked on posts of the year. I don't see a pattern, but that's okay, because I'm not looking for one:

It's not about you

Really bad Powerpoint (7 years later, sadly still relevant)

Project management for work that matters

But what if I fail?

Two new videos

Will you share my new book?

The four horsemen of mediocrity

What does it's too expensive mean?

The self-marketing of Ebola

Never eat sushi at the airport

Not even one note

The most important question

The fatal arrogance of tldr

The self driving reset

The stories we tell ourselves

Conference call hygiene

Confidence is a choice, not a symptom

Get rich quick

Treating people with kindness

Sorting for youth meritocracy

No is essential

The right moment

The tyranny of the lowest price

Girl Scout cookies

How do I get rid of the fear

The most important reader of this blog is you. Thanks for taking leaps, for leading by example and for doing work that matters.

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marți, 30 decembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Vermont Throws in the Towel on Inane Single-Payer "Medicare for All" Proposal; Live and Let Die; Why Does Single-Payer "Work" in Europe?

Posted: 30 Dec 2014 06:43 PM PST

Proponents of the single-payer healthcare idea who tout the idea such a system will save money need only look at Vermont to see reality.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, a single-payer advocate, threw the single-payer idea on the ash heap of history admitting what any sensible person knew from the onset:

The plan would cost far more than estimated
The plan would quickly become insolvent
Massive tax increases would be required
Coverage would decline for many

MainWire explains in Lessons for Maine in Vermont's Failure.

Last Wednesday, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin announced that he was abandoning his plan for a single-payer health care system for the state, finally admitting in an unexpected news conference that it is "not the right time."

As one most liberal states in the nation, Vermont has faced years of internal pressure to adopt government-run health care. Shumlin made single-payer health care a major feature of his recent re-election campaign, and until last week, seemed to be blazing a trail towards the first single-payer system in the U.S.

His plan, which was designed partly by controversial Obamacare architect Jonathon Gruber, would have pushed for a single-payer – the state of Vermont – to pay health care costs, instead of private insurance companies. Nearly every Vermonter would have been required to be insured under "Green Mountain Care," a state-run agency funded primarily through taxes rather than insurance premiums.

The cost for Green Mountain Care was estimated to be approximately $2.6 billion, an astounding $300 million more Vermont's entire budget for FY 2015. The state would have needed an overwhelming 11.5% payroll tax on businesses and a new sliding-scale income tax of up to 9.5% just to get the program off the ground. Given that Vermont already boasts a top income tax rate of 8.95%, a 6% sales tax and 8.5% corporate income tax, these new taxes would have made Vermont the highest taxed state in America, by a significant amount.

Even with those new taxes, Shumlin's administration predicted that Green Mountain Care would be drawing a deficit by at least 2020, meaning additional revenue or tax increases would be needed in the near future.

Supporters assert that despite the huge tax increases, a single-payer system is ideal and could actually save money. They maintain that a single-payer system would lower health care spending by way of decreased administrative costs, discounts for buying bulk insurance, and lower reimbursement rates for hospitals.

However, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that none of the above would or could happen in America. Medicare and Medicaid (government insurers already in existence) do not have significantly lower administrative costs. Large insurance companies already buy in bulk and purchase more plans than entire countries that utilize the single-payer system. And while slashing reimbursement rates may sound good for taxpayers, it would also mean drastic pay cuts for hardworking doctors, nurses, receptionists, and technicians. No politician in their right mind would ever cut health care reimbursements, or at least not to the point where taxpayers would see any benefit.

Another major issue that Vermont encountered is the level of coverage to provide in a single-payer system. Instead of having consumers purchase health insurance based upon their needs or income, the single-payer model favored by Vermont forces everyone to pay for the same amount coverage, regardless of health care requirements. With all citizens reduced to a single coverage level, Vermont was faced with the catch-22 of choosing between a low or high coverage level, and deciding whether they wanted to decrease or increase coverage for many of their residents.

In the end, Vermont chose platinum level coverage for all, reasoning it wasn't fair to force anyone to decrease the quality of their insurance plan. While this was a polite gesture, it was nonetheless an expensive compromise, and a definite factor in the plan's eventual failure.

Proponents of "Medicare for All" Rally

In spite of the obvious ridiculousness of "Medicare for All", Politico notes that proponents refuse to thrown in the towel.

Advocates of a single-payer plan said Shumlin should not be able to cast aside Act 48, the 2011 law that called for the creation of Green Mountain Care, without repealing it. A group planned to hold a rally in front of the statehouse on Thursday to protest his decision.

"The governor's misguided decision was a completely unnecessary result of a failed policy calculation that he pursued without Democratic input," the group Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign said in a statement.

Gruber Poison

Shumlin's plan was designed partly by Obamacare architect Jonathon Gruber. Thus, it's no wonder the plan was overoptimistic in what it could achieve.

Gruber is an admitted liar who will stop at nothing to get universal healthcare. As I noted on November 11, Gruber stated "Stupidity of American Voter" Needed to Pass Obamacare.

For his lies and deceit, he was paid $400,000 by the Obama administration. Vermont also paid the liar.

From Politico ....

Gruber, now infamous for his blunt assessments of the Affordable Care Act and his remarks about "stupid" voters, was until recently a state consultant. Days after the election, video emerged of him dismissing criticism of Vermont's plan in 2011 by asking, "Was this written by my adolescent children, by any chance?" State officials said they would cut off his contract.

Activists in California, Hawaii, New York, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania still pursue their fantasy.

Vermont's outcome is a "small speed bump," said New York Assembly member Richard Gottfried, who's been pushing single-payer bills for more than 20 years. Gottfried has been introducing his New York single-payer bill every year since 1992. The cause is "not for the faint of heart."

Why Does Single-Payer "Work" in Europe?

Proponents of single-payer say countries in Europe proves the model works. But what does "work" mean?

The answer is enormous taxes, control of doctors' salaries, control of nurses' salaries, control of drug costs, etc., etc. In other words, government-run everything is why the model appears to work.

In the US, control of all of that is impossible, thankfully. When accurate assessments of tax hikes are imputed, no one wants to pay.

Single-payer advocates in the US don't want any controls even though US citizens are the most obese in the world and the most resistant to "rationing".

People expect the "free lunch" that liars like Gruber promise.

Live and Let Die

"Medicare for all" cannot and will not work in the US because the US is not willing to become France or Sweden. Meanwhile, government interference in the free markets has given the US the worst of possibilities.

The solution is not "medicare for all" with government controls over everything but to live-and-let-die.

Massive amounts of money in the US are wasted keeping people alive for another six months or less, in great pain. This holds true even for those without insurance.

Heck, it even holds true for the already dead!

Terri Schiavo Case

Let's not forget the Terri Schiavo Case. By any practical measure, Terri Schiavo was dead. She had no functioning brain. Yet it took a 7 year battle for her husband to get the right to remove her feeding tube.

George Bush signed legislation to keep her alive. in 2003 Florida Governor Jed Bush signed "Terri's Law" forcing the state to keep a dead woman breathing against the wishes of her husband.

Once someone is terminal, without proper insurance, nothing other than comfort drugs should be given. And in regards to drugs, the US has the highest prescription drug prices in the world because of import restrictions.

Obamacare will not let insurers charge more for smokers or obese. There are many healthcare cost items a free market could solve.

At what point do we say "you get food, comfort care, and pain relievers" but that's it?

Instead, we suffer with the worst of both systems, unwilling to become France or Sweden for tax purposes, unwilling to ration health-care based on life expectancy, and willing to pay the highest costs in the world thanks to very poorly written legislation.

It's time to scrap the whole damn thing and start all over.

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

1000% Inflation in Venezuela?

Posted: 30 Dec 2014 12:26 PM PST

Those looking for hyperinflation can find it in Venezuela. Here's the question of the day: How bad is Venezuelan inflation and how bad can it get?

Bloomberg reports Venezuelan 1,000% Inflation Seen by BofA Without Weaker Bolivar

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, set to announce a new currency system today, needs to devalue the bolivar or risk inflation passing 1,000 percent as soon as next year, according to Bank of America Corp.

Under the current system, Venezuela's overvalued bolivar means that the government effectively sells the dollars it gets from oil exports at a discount, compelling policy makers to print extra currency to cover domestic spending needs. Currency controls that limit Venezuelans' access to dollars have spawned a black market in which the greenback fetches 172 bolivars, compared with officially sanctioned exchange rates that range from 6.3 to about 50 bolivars per dollar.

"If we don't see a large adjustment of the exchange rate, we're almost certain to have triple-digit inflation and I wouldn't be surprised to see the economy veering into four-digit annual inflation," Francisco Rodriguez, the chief Andean economist at Bank of America, said by phone from New York on Dec. 28, before Maduro scheduled his announcement. The government "needs to print money to finance the deficit and it is running a deficit because its revenues in bolivars are too low."

Maduro said in televised speeches earlier this month that he saw no need to cut the government subsidies that leave gasoline selling for 6 cents a gallon, and that he will keep a 6.3 bolivar-per-dollar fixed exchange rate for priority imports.

The most recent official data is that annual inflation in Venezuela was 63 percent in August, the fastest in the world. A more up-to-date estimate based on the depreciation of the bolivar on the black market is 183 percent, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute.

The bolivar weakened 42 percent on the black market in the fourth quarter, according to data from dolartoday.com, outpacing even the 29 percent decline in the Russian ruble. Both currencies have been pressured by declines in price of oil, which makes up 95 percent of Venezuela's exports and is the country's principal source of hard currency.

With no access to international capital markets and falling revenue from oil sales, Maduro is dependent on loans from allies or on printing more money to plug his growing budget deficit.

"If they continue with their social welfare and income redistribution programs, they'll be forced to run the printing press at an ever accelerating rate," Hanke said. "There is tremendous pressure on them to keep spending and their sources of financing have dried up."

Venezuela's M2 money supply, a measure of the amount of bolivars in the economy that includes bank notes in circulation as well as retail savings, rose by 64 percent in the past 12 months. That is three times as fast as any other country tracked by Bloomberg.

Curious Headline

The Bloomberg headline "Venezuelan 1,000% Inflation Seen by BofA Without Weaker Bolivar" is rather curious given a weaker bolivar and Venezuelan inflation go hand in hand.

In isolation, the headline makes little sense.

However, the article explains Venezuela is bleeding foreign reserves in an effort to defend the official exchange rate and also to provide subsidies.

Selling gasoline at 6 cents a gallon is ridiculous. Can anyone really get gas at that price? If so, how much? Black market siphoning of gas to sell at higher rates elsewhere has to be going on.

Regardless, and as I have pointed out before, foreign reserves and hard cash from oil sales are the only things preventing a total collapse in the bolivar.

Once reserves are gone, there will not be merchandise in stores at any price, let alone the nonsensical official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollars.

The black market rate of 172-per-dollar vs. the official rate of 6.3-per-dollar is a decline of 96.34%. That's not not as bad as Zimbabwe, but Maduro is surely trying.

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

Damn Cool Pics

The Complete Guide To Sex After 40

Posted: 30 Dec 2014 04:44 PM PST

It doesn't get any more real than this.

You Won't Believe How Flexible Chloe Bruce Is

Posted: 30 Dec 2014 04:28 PM PST

Chloe Bruce is a world champion in the world of martial arts. As if that wasn't impressive enough, she's more flexible than pretty much everyone else on the planet.