Posted by randfish
Despite being a seemingly simple topic, this one seems to stymie even experienced SEOs. There's a natural conflict that creates the issue - the more keywords you target on a single page, the less you need to link build and optimize (for both search engines and user experience/conversion rate) on many pages.
To answer this question in a logical and truly optimal fashion, you need to start with the answer to two other important questions:
When you answer the first question, you'll be able to break up lists of keyword terms into buckets of "intent." Searches are almost always intended to discover information or take action. If there are too many pieces of information/actions you need to provide on a single page, your conversion will drop. Remember that a 10% conversion rate for position #10 is better than a 0.5% conversion rate for position #1 (assuming the avgs. from the leaked AOL data cited below).
NOTE: This data is from averages via AOL's data release in 2007. New numbers have not been forthcoming from any of the engines or third-party studies.
For the second question, you need to know something about the competition levels. In a scenario where every shred of keyword usage matters a great deal, from the anchor text focus to the keyword being employed at the very start of the title tag, breaking up keyword targeting to multiple pages can make a great deal of sense. If you're deep into research on this topic, you can do something like the image below, where I've taken stats and metrics for all of the top 25 ranking pages for the query "broadway tickets" on Google.com and run analysis:
NOTE: data in this graph via Open Site Explorer's Backlink Analysis
If a keyword is highly competitive, I suggest single page targeting. This is not only because you can maximize on-page optimization, but also because it means that internal and external links that point to the page can focus more directly on the target term/phrase. It's also likely that you'll be competing against pages that are more highly targeted on that keyword phrase and could lose out if you don't have that singular, pinpoint focus.
I wrote another post on a similar topic highlighting how to format titles, meta descriptions and keyword usage on pages that aim for multi-keyword targeting that may also be of help.
Look forward to your thoughts on the topic.
Posted by RobOusbey
Search Engine Optimization covers a huge range of tactics - all of which can bring direct benefit to a website. In this post, I've shared examples of different tactics used at different websites, and the effects that have been seen. If you're considering an SEO campaign for your site, or are trying to persuade someone else to invest in internet marketing, I hope this post will help demonstrate the potential of internet marketing.
The post includes real screen shots from Google Analytics (click any of them to enlarge) but the sites and data have been anonymized.
Remember that post about building a page with perfect keyword targeting? SEOmoz wasn't kidding around.
A website that sells homewares had issues with site structure and on-page targeting. Their category level pages were at subdomains such as
Getting appropriate H1 tags onto each page was a quick job, improving title tag structure took a bit longer, clean & friendly URLs and internal links with appropriate anchor text were also added.
The site saw ranking improvements across the board, which brought new traffic through head, mid and long tail terms. Can you guess when the changes were made? ;-)
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of ranking factors for Local Search, dead simple tactics, etc, it's important to get the basics right. A large chain of restaurants created a 'bulk upload' file with the correct data for each one of their locations. After uploading the file, they applied for it to be reviewed and 'whitelisted'. Local data that's been uploaded by the business owner and whitelisted is treated as authoritatively as locations that have been manually verified by postcard.
Despite various issues (Google's best practice guidelines still aren't quite the best solution in some cases) the traffic generated by visibility in Local Search has been significant and valuable. (The uploads were verified in late November when the traffic begins its steady rise.)
A current affairs magazine wanted to get more from their website. Because of falling advertising revenue, the publication was at risk of being closed down. They'd seen some growth from SEO already, but wanted to prove that the website had greater value.
Although the site had a good brand and some great content, it suffered from similar problems to many news-type websites, including badly archived content, duplicate issues and a CMS that hampered keyword targeting or promoting individual articles. Recommendations were made to improve the site's architecture and migrate to the new structure.
The effect of the changes was immediate growth which took the organic traffic to 257% in three months. A month later, the magazine's owner explained that the falling revenue from print advertising meant that they couldn't continue to lose money publishing the mag, and closed it down.
Hook, Line, SinkerAn office cleaning company wanted to improve the profile of their site through SEO. Amongst other tactics, a member of staff spent a day writing a 'linkbait' post to publish on their blog. This generated huge amounts of traffic from social media sites (dwarfing their regular daily visitors) and was subsequently linked to from dozens of sites. This post, along with other content published on the site to attract links, helped the site grow in strength and authority, and it now ranks position 3 for 'office cleaning' in their country.
Paid In FullThis is SEOmoz, but I'd like to share a graph from a PPC colleague working on a site that sells scooters. They were initially bidding on very broad terms (scooter, scooters, buy a scooter, etc) but the campaign was adjusted to target more long tail terms, including descriptions, specifications, etc.
Over a period of around six weeks, the cost per click was reduced by 30% and the more targeted traffic converted increasingly well - this allowed the site owners to increase their ad budget and generated more sales than their paid search campaign ever had before.
If you're new to SEOmoz and this post has inspired you to get involved in search marketing for your site, do browse the site for the PRO & free SEO guides and the SEO blog. If you're a regular, do share any stories you're particularly proud of in the comments.Posted by randfish
This week, despite still being seriously under the weather (see this week's sad WB Friday), I flew down to SMX West to speak on the Link Building Strategies panel. Although I'd wanted to put more work in and deliver a better presentation, I received some very kind words afterward and requests from folks to share the deck via the blog. Before I embed the actual deck, though, I need to provide some context (as this isn't a wholly self-explanatory presentation).
Link building has, classically, been a tactic slapped on to a marketing campaign or website post-launch. I believe that those companies/sites that treat link acquisition as an afterthought, rather than building it into the product, will always lose out to those who treat link building strategically. In the deck below, I walk through a number of examples of sites, primarily startups, that have done this. These include:
Here's the deck:
As you can see, I've put in a shameless plug for Open Site Explorer at the end. If you haven't seen the new features launched yesterday, you're missing out. Tons of the data is completely free, and top pages is just about the easiest way to find traffic and link opportunities ever built (not that I'm biased or anything). :-)
Look forward to your comments about the presentation and the concept of productizing link acquisition into a site.
Posted by great scott!
Sure, you use Twitter as a social media tool, but have you ever considered it as an SEO research tool? No? Well watch and learn this week to find out how you can harness it in a whole new way.Posted by Danny Dover
Today I am proud to announce the launch of the second version of Open Site Explorer. Since SEOmoz has officially moved out of consulting, we are now able to put our full resources into building fantastic SEO software. We want to thank all of you who provided feedback on the first version of the tool for your guidance and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
Now enough with the chit chat, on to the new features!
New Features:With the new version of Open Site Explorer you can get a sorted listed of the top 10,000 pages on a domain. This is essential for viewing your own site and for doing competitive analysis.
With this new feature, we can see that Microsoft is unwisely 302 redirecting their homepage! Doh!
You can also see which content is drawing the most links on your competitors websites. In this example we see that that these are the most linked to comics on XKCD.
Target URL The new version of Open Site Explorer shows you which URL a given link is targeting when you sort by sub or root domains so you can see exactly where the given link is helping you. (This is also available for all links when the data is exported as a CSV)After lots of input, we are now offering more robust CSV exports.
Remember how you used to have to reload the page every time you applied a filter in Yahoo! Site Explorer?
With the addition of the Filter Results button, these needless page reloads are a thing of the past.
Common Tasks are Easier to PerformNew buttons make performing common tasks easier and faster to do.
The new Explore and Compare buttons make it easier to get more information about any links you find interesting.
With the new version of this tool you can do even more filtering to drill down into what you think is important.
In this example, we filtered the data to show only followed (dofollow) and 301 redirecting external links to the specific page.
Open Site Explorer vs. Linkscape vs. Yahoo! Site ExplorerThroughout this process, we also heard a lot of questions about the differences between Yahoo! Site Explorer, Open Site Explorer and Linkscape. The chart below lays out the similarities and differences.
Are there other features you want to see? Are we moving in the right direction? We want know! Please feel free to share your suggestions and opinions via SEOmoz on Twitter, SEOmoz on Facebook or in the comments below :-)
Posted by jennita
SMX West 2010 kicked off with quite a bang (or was that a yell?). Since Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer was the keynote, people arrived early to ensure good seats. The music playing before it started was amazing, it helped to create an excitement in the room that I really had never felt before a keynote before. I had attempted to save a seat for someone up front, but there was just too much demand and had to give it up. That's the sort of thing that happens at a great concert, not a conference keynote.Posted by randfish
This post is short and easy to follow, just like the tactic it recommends. Most everyone who optimizes for Google Local (aka Google Maps) is familar with David Mihm's excellent and oft-referenced Local Search Ranking Factors. In that document, and in many places where local results are analyzed, it's clear that getting your business/website into more listings, in a consistent fashion is a very good thing.
Yet, somehow, this obvious tactic has gone missing from many GG Local optimization recommendations. Either that or it's so obvious that no one feels the need to mention it. Whatever the case, it's available now :-)
Step 1: Do Lots of Searches Related to Your Business & RegionLet's say you're working on local SEO for a Thai restaurant in Seattle, WA. Searches you might perform include:
You're seeking results that show competing or closely related businesses, so get creative.
Step 2: Identify a Handful (or a Few Dozen) Businesses that Consistently Get Top RankingsYou could build a formal spreadsheet and perform tracking to identify these or start with gut feel and expand later on in the process. For less competitive listings, an informal approach may work just fine.
Step 3: Go to the Local Business Profile for Each of TheseDon't click the name of the listing itself. Instead, follow the links to the "reviews" about each of your competitors' businesses. You'll get a page with information about the business, reviews and lists of data that Google has found about them.
Step 4: Click on the Links to "More About this Place"The "more about this place" section of the business listing shows brief snippets, titles and URLs where Google has found relevant information pertaining to the business. This is your potential goldmine for discovering listing sources.
Step 5: Go to those Sites & Get Your Business Added/UpdatedThe domains that are listed are places where Google is pulling information about your business. This is where the Maps algorithm comes into play - it relies on not only the number of listings, but the quality of the sources and the consistency between them. You want every listing to perfectly match one another, right down the the suffix on the reservations phone number and the formatting of your suite number (e.g. 1221 E Pike Street vs. 1221 East Pike Street vs. 1221 E Pike Street Suite 200 vs. 1221 East Pike Street #200 are all DIFFERENT - don't make that mistake).
As an example, I visited a link from Thaiku's listing in the example above to Intuit's Local Business Directory (I didn't even know they had one until now) and could then add/edit SEOmoz's listing:
In addition to the potential local ranking boost, a majority of these sources offer the potential to earn links! Even if you don't care much about the local results themselves, this is a pretty terrific way to get some good quality, trusted sites linking to you.
Step 6: Repeat Step 4 & 5 for the "Reviews" and "User Content" SectionsIf you're hungry for even more sources, you can look at where listings come from on other competitors and/or go back to the business listing's page in Google Maps/Local and choose from the "reviews" and "user content" sections for even more potential spots. Much like manual link building back in the late '90's, perseverance and careful attention to detail will take you far.
There are automated services out there to help with this process, but I haven't yet seen one I feel completely comfortable about. The biggest issue is the dramatic value of and need for consistency in the listings. When automated systems submit, they can mix in a suite number in the wrong place, cut off a phone number because the form doesn't accept hyphens or confirm a URL that doesn't match what you've submitted elsewhere. For now, I recommend playing it safe and spending the hours (even if that's a dozen or two) to get those 50-250 listings correct. Google will reward you with local rankings and high quality traffic.
p.s. Next week I'm down in Portland for SEMpdx's Searchfest and hope to spend time with some true local search experts and perhaps share some more cutting edge tactics :-)
Posted by randfish
We've been getting a lot of questions in Q+A and on the road at events like last week's Miva Merchant conference, Online Marketing Summit and the YCombinator conference about how to properly paginate results for search engines. In this post, we'll cover the dangers, opportunities and optimization tactics that can best ensure success. The best part? These practices aren't just good for SEO, they're great for usability and user experience too!
Why is Pagination an SEO Issue?Pagination, the practice of segmenting links to content on multiple pages, affects two critical elements of search engine accessibility.
When a site grows beyond a few dozen pages of content in a specific category or subcategory, listing all of the links on a single page of results can make for unwieldly, hard-to-use pages that seem to scroll indefinitely (and can cause long load times as well).
Clearly, I need to log into Facebook more often...
But, usability isn't the only reason pagination exists. For many years, Google's recommended that pages contain no more than 100 links (internal or external) in order to make it easy for spiders to reach down deep into a site's architecture. Many SEOs have found that this "limit" isn't hard and fast, but staying within that general range remains a best practice. Hence, pages that contain many hundreds or thousands of links may inadvertently be hurting the access of search engines to the content-rich pages in the list making pagination essential.
Numbers of Links & PagesWe know that sometimes pagination is essential - one page of results just doesn't cut it in every situation. But just how many links to content should the average category/results page show? And how many pages of results should display in the pagination?
There are a lot of options here, but there's serious danger in using the wrong structures. Let's take a look at the right (and wrong) ways to determine link numbers.
In some cases, there's simply too many pages of results to list them all. When this happens, the very best thing you can do is to work around the problem by... creating more subcategories! It may seem challenging or even counter-intuitive, but adding either an extra layer of classification or a greater number of subcategories can have a dramatically positive impact on both SEO and usability.
There are times, however, when even the creation of many deep subcategories isn't enough. If your site is big enough, you may need to have extensive pagination such that not every page of results can be reached in once click. In these cases, there are a few clear dos and don'ts.
Do:
Don't:
When in doubt, consider the directives you're optimizing toward - the need for fewer extra pages of pagination, the desire to make the browsing experience usable (many webmasters mistakenly think users will simply give up and search, forgetting that some of us can't recall the name of the piece we're looking for!) and the importance of maintaining a reasonable count of links per page. Also note that although I've illustrated using 5-10 listings (for graphical space requirements), a normal listings set could be 30-90 links per page, depending on the situation.
Titles & Meta Descriptions for Paginated ResultsIn most cases, the title and meta description of paginated results are copied from the top page. This isn't ideal, as it can potentially cause duplicate content issues. Instead, you can employ a number of tactics to help solve the problem.
Example of results page titles & descriptions:
Top Page Title: Theatres & Playhouses in Princeton, New Jersey
Top Page Meta Description: Listings of 368 theatres, playhouses and performance venues in the Princeton, NJ region (including surrounding cities).
Page 4 Title: Page 4 of 7 for Princeton, New Jersey Theatres & Playhouses
Page 4 Meta Description: Listings 201-250 (out of 368) theatres, playhouses and performance venues in the Princeton, NJ region (inclusing surrounding cities).
Alternate Page 4 Title: Results Page 4/7 for Princeton, New Jersey Theatres & Playhouses
Alternate Page 4: Description: -
Yes, you can use no meta description at all, and in fact, if I were setting up a CMS today, this is how I'd do it. A missing meta description reduces complexity and potential mis-casting of URLs as duplicates. Also notce that I've made the titles on results pages sub-optimal to help dissuade the engines from sending traffic to these URLs, rather than the top page (which is made to be the better "landing" experience for users).
Nofollows. Rel=Canonicals and Conditional RedirectsSome SEOs and website owners have, unfortunately, received or interpreted advice incorrectly about employing directives like the nofollow tag, canonical URL tag or even conditional redirects to help control bot activity in relation to pagination. These are almost always a bad idea.
Whatever you do, DO NOT:
The only time I recommend using any of these is when pagination exists in multiple formats. For example, if you let users re-sort by a number of different metrics (in a restaurant list, for example, it might be by star rating, distance, name, price, etc.), you may want to either perform this re-sort using javascript (and employ the hash tag in the URL) or make those separately segmented paginated results rel=canonical back to a single sorting format.
Letting Users Display More/Less ResultsFrom a usability perspective, this can make good sense, allowing users with faster connections or a greater desire to browse large numbers of results at once to achieve these goals. However, it can cause big duplicate problems for search engines, and add complexity and useless pages to the engines' indices. If/when you create these systems, employ javascript/AJAX (either with or without the hash tag) to make the pages reload without creating a separate URL.
(the Google Analytics interface allows users to choose the number of rows shown, though they don't have to worry much about crawlability or search-friendliness)
Also remember that the "default" number of results shown is what the search engines will see; so make that count match your goals for usability and SEO.
Additional ResourcesIf you have any thoughts or recommendations to share in the comments, we'd love to hear from you!
Posted by RobOusbey
This is a graph of organic traffic for a theoretical site - they might be in an industry such as print advertising, construction equipment or VHS rental. The decline in traffic is pronounced and serious.Posted by great scott!
This week, we've got a couple of newcomers to Whiteboard Studios! Our very own Jen Lopez and Danny Dover (whom you should know well thanks to Jen's Meet the Mozzers post) are pinch-hitting for our globe-trotting CEO. Let's all give them a big welcome.Posted by jennita
Over the past few months, we've announced a number of exciting changes here at the mozPlex. Some of those include becoming focused on our software, new SEO tools and a cultural change with our TAGFEE Tenets. With that, we're committed to being transparent and authentic and feel we've done a great job keeping the SEOmoz community up to date on many of these changes.
However, one area we've been slacking is in ensuring that our community knows who we are, as a team. There are many mozzers who mainly work behind the scenes building tools, or providing excellent customer service to our members. Along with our shift from consulting, we've had a few organizational changes and people's roles have changed. Additionally we have a number of moz Associates that help contribute to the blog and provide expertise in Q & A.
We'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our team, and ask you to get to know us a little better. There are a few new mozzers that may even surprise you! This is an exciting time for us and the community and we're excited to introduce ourselves. Each mozzer was asked to provide their title, social media accounts, top moz moment (tools created, blog posts written, etc.), then I asked them to answer a few fun questions. So without further ado, I'd like you to meet the mozzers.
Development TeamEvery team plays an important role to the success of SEOmoz and our tools, but the development team is key. Without this group we wouldn't have the suite of amazing tools that we have to offer our members today. Browse through the developers and see who has worked on your favorite tool, and learn more about the people behind the scenes.
Ben Hendrickson Sr Software Engineer
On Saturday morning I like to catch up on sleep.
Kate Matsudaira VP Engineering
The funniest job I ever had was… In high-school during the summer I would be the guy-in-a-foam-costume mascot for the local mall I worked at. Think giant purple dinosaur (but not barney.)
Now that we are focused on our SEO tools, the consulting and marketing teams have been combined. There have been a number of changes in roles and we're now more focused than ever on getting our products launched, participating and leading our amazing community, and creating excellent content for our readers. Take a peak at our new Marketing team!
Danny Dover SEO SpecialistThe product team leads the path to ensuring that the products being built meet the needs of our customers and they manage the projects from inception through deployment. Essentially they make sure we're all doing our jobs. :)
Adam Feldstein Director of Product Management moz MomentWho keeps the company working like a well oiled machine? That's the Operations team of course! They jump in and help with any aspect of the company as needed and are often our customers first point of contact. Without their magic touch the office would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Thanks for keeping us from running into each other!
Arden Turnbull Customer Service Manager / Office Coordinator moz MomentThis is an amazing group of experts from across the search marketing industry. We're priveledged to have this group contributing to the blog, helping with Q & A and providing insight for new products. It sorta feels like we're showing off... because we totally are!
Cindy Krum CEO & founder of Rank-Mobile - Denver, COLast, but definitely not least we have our co-founders Rand and Gillian. They may very well be the most well known of the bunch, but I bet you didn't know Rand used to be a black market Pokemon dealer! Without these two, we wouldn't be the team we are today.
Gillian Muessig President/Co-FounderThanks for taking the time to get to know us!
Posted by neopunisher
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.
After Nick announced the free Linkscape API, I decided to write a SEO extension for chrome. I wanted to focus on all aspects of SEO and not just linking (like some other extensions) as well as a fast clean UI. I organized data from the page and external signals into 5 categories: External Page Data, Page Elements, Social Media, Page Terms, Server / Domain Info, and Suggestions as well as enhancing some common SEO related sites like Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Analytics
Install the SEO SIte Tools extention and see for yourself... it's only one click and you won't be disappointed.
External Page Data shows domain metrics link links and rank
Server / Domain Info checks the domain's IP and country and displays it on a map along with registrar information and WhoIs info
Suggestions gives helpful on-page SEO suggestions about title tag, links on page, meta description, meta keywords (hey it can’t hurt)
Page Terms (still a work in progress) performs term extraction and lets you do keyword research with Google’s keyword research tool
It also has ability to enhance Google Webmaster Tools with links anchor text, if they are followed links and mozRank (or PageRank) of linking pages
Adds Social media reactions to Google Analytics page details with Facebook shares, likes and comments as well as Delicious bookmarks and Diggs
It also adds the link and anchor text info to Yahoo Site Explorer with mozRank (or PageRank)
It is still being developed so I would love any feedback you could give me on it…
Some future plans are:
Get the SEO Site Tools Extention Now
Get in touch with me on twitter I'm @cartercole and follow me for updates of new releases (but if you install the plug-in it will automatically update) [highly recommended] :)
Posted by willcritchlow
The good news is that tomorrow (Wednesday 24th Feb), at 8.30am PST (11.30am EST / 4.30pm GMT), I am going to be joined on the next Distilled conference call by Richard Baxter as we discuss "how to get the most from your SEO". The even better news is that it is totally free (as long as you register in time).
If you would like to join us on the call, simply register on the Distilled site and you will be sent instructions to join the conference (which will be handled by gotomeeting / gotowebinar).
Previous calls have been more technical and have been essentially presentations that I have delivered with a slide-deck. I did one on SEOmoz tools and one on how to be an Excel ninja - both videos are available on the Distilled site.
This one is going to be a little different. Rich should need little introduction. With a strong background in in-house travel SEO followed by founding his agency, SEOgadget, he is not only a true guru of keyword research and large site architecture, but also has experience on both sides of the client / agency relationship. He also spoke at the London PRO training seminar last October (thanks to foliovision for the photo):
Rich and I plan to let you into a relaxed chat. We might pull up the occasional website or slide but fundamentally, it'll be a little like sitting in on a live whiteboard Friday (on a Wednesday, without a whiteboard, or Rand!).
The conversation is likely to be pretty free-flowing - in many ways it will lead on from my WBF conversation with Rand about choosing an SEO consultant - but I can't guarantee exactly what we will talk about! We are intending to cover:
We hope to have you there. We will be taking questions - both on Twitter (hashtag: #optimalSEO) and via the chat interface in gotowebinar, but if you have anything you'd specifically like us to cover, feel free to use the comments below to chime in.
Posted by randfish
Last week, while in London, I received an email from Paul Graham, whom I've long admired, possibly even idolized a bit. He asked if I was available to come speak at a YCombinator SEO event in Mountain View. Tonight, I presented at that evented and thought I'd share my experiences, recommendations and yes, my presentation. Not everything that was discussed is public, in fact, much of it is "classified" at YC's request. However, there's so much good material that it would be criminal not to share.
First up, my presentation from the YCombinator SEO for Startups event (naturally, hosted on YC company and prior SEOmoz consulting client, Scribd):
SEO for Startups: YCombinator February 2010
Next, since it's hard to do any slide deck justice with just the slides, a list of top advice and recommendations, not just from the slide deck, but from many years of interactions, consulting and Q+A help for startups:
And last, but not least, I'd like to recognize some of the brilliant people and companies represented. It was humbling to receive such kind praise and attentitive ears from companies like:
Tragically, the following brief set of photos from the event were taken on my new Android camera phone (yes, I'm such a Hacker News/Paul Graham geek that I had to pull it out):
YCombinator Founders Eating Dinner (noticeably absent in the photo was the single female founder - but they do have one!)
Luckily, there was plenty of Coke to help keep me hydrated (and caffeinated) during the event
The rush for pizza (apparently, The Flash is one of the founders they funded!)
Paul and Rand in the Anybots lab - thanks again, Paul; it was a fantastic experience
There were more than 40 companies in attendance, so there's no way to name them all here, but the above represent some of the most active on the SEO panel and during the lengthy, but phenomenal Q+A. Later this week, SEOmoz's own Danny Dover will be attending the Y Combinator meetup in Seattle, and he'd love to say hi and chat with folks there, and hopefully help to bring a good name to SEO.
p.s. At the end of the presentation, Paul noted that the startups owed me a debt for sharing information about SEO. I disagree, but who am I to pass up such a wonderful opportunity. My only request to the attendees was that, if they should see SEO being badmouthed on Hacker News to kindly step in and help others realize the power and legitimacy of this marketing channel.
Posted by Tom_C
This post was inspired by Rand. If I'm honest, I'm not sure how many of my posts aren't inspired by Rand... Specifically however it was this tweet which set the wheels in motion (if ever so slowly):The book’s main point is simple: no matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes - freakonomics
been shown to increase safety, save lives and make millions. Atul Gawande is a surgeon and has worked hard to get checklists implemented in the medical profession to help save lives. He's written a book about these checklists called The Checklist Manifesto (Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk). If you want to read more about these fascinating checklists and their incredible power I suggest you check out the FT link above or click here to read this New Yorker article written by Atul Gawande himself. Also, be sure to check out a sample from one of the medical checklists.Posted by randfish
Last week I spent a day with small business owners in Glasgow (pronounced glaz-go), Scotland teaching the basics of online marketing and SEO. It was a remarkable experience to be faced with such a different crowd than what I'm used to. As a comparison, the week prior, I'd been in Mountain View presenting to the Silicon Valley Search Engine Roundtable, comprised of heads of SEO and marketing directors from Fortune 500 companies - all very savvy operators.
The program, Online Xcellence, was sponsored by the Scottish government and organized by Brian Mathers, one of the most extraordinarily passionate people I've met in the search marketing world.
Rand, Brian Mathers & Mystery Guest (err... Everywhereist these days)
Brian's inspired determination has brought online marketing to hundreds of businesses in Scotland. It was, in fact, wholly remarkable to witness the friendships and camaraderie he'd built by showing off the power of usable websites, analytics and search marketing. Even more impressive was the financial and business success he'd brought to the companies he helped, many of whom were in attendance for the Online Xcellence event.
Brian wasn't the only wonderful host we met in Glasgow. His colleagues, Adrian Bereziuk and Yusuf Chauhdry helped to make us feel at home. In fact, one of SEOmoz's contributors, Mintyman (aka Darren Savery, who runs the Semiconductor Directory and authored this excellent post last year) not only attended the event, but picked us up from the airport and took us out to dinner! Scotland's legendary hospitality & outgoing friendliness were easy to find wherever we went - from shopkeepers to train passengers to taxi drivers and hotel staff.
Since the audience reading this blog likely doesn't need a refresher course in the basics of online marketing and SEO, I though that instead, I'd share some of the biggest takeaways from my experience in talking to Scottish businesses on SEO & marketing topics.
#1 - Prioritization of Marketing Tactics Drives Small Businesses Crazy
Small business owners know that there massive opportunities from web marketing, but the options and recommendations are overwhelming. PPC, SEO, social media, analytics, design, usability, email marketing - the list goes on and around every corner there's a case study of a business that's done remarkable things with each of these. Sometimes it's hard to just get past the basics of "what should my website look like?" and "what information should I put on the site?"
I'd written a more advanced post on the topic of choosing the right Internet marketing channel, but this is a true struggle and one I don't have an answer for. Maybe someone will come out with a remarkable resource that can help on this topic - it's certainly needed.
#2 - The Myth of Great Content Pervades
For those practicing SEO, the flawed concept that "great content" will naturally attract links and rankings is a big problem. "Make great content" isn't bad advice, it's just not the whole picture. The site that does a great job converting visitors and providing solid information about their product will, most likely, lose out to a site with subpar material for customers that does a great job building material that appeals to the linkers of the web and marketing directly to them. Just like everything else in life, search engine rankings aren't fair and sites don't get what they deserve. The web rewards savvy operators who understand the psychology that drives attention, interest and links.
I wrote about this just last December - Great Content Equals Great Rankings, Right? Wrong.
#3 - Local Listings are Still a Mystery (and sometimes a thorn in a small business' side)
I consistently point folks to David Mihm's excellent resource on the local search ranking factors when faced with these questions, but sometimes the problems go deeper than just listings and ranking. Many business owners have third-parties that set up their local listings on Google (website developers, SEOs, etc). When it comes time to update the listings, reclaiming ownership of those accounts or correcting errors can be a nightmare, and in some cases, Google has no system to handle the situation.
The one piece of advice I can give that's straightforward and consistently effective is to research the sources Google pulls from in the local listings (usually by examining competitors' sources) and get listed in these. The name, address, phone number and website address (along with other details) of the business need to match exactly every time - contintuity among the listings seems to be a big ranking factor.
#4 - Multiple Sites are a Weak Link Building Strategy
I think it's only natural that when many of us first get into SEO and find out about PageRank and the power of links, we instantly generate the brilliant idea to build dozens or hundreds of sites that all link to our main site in an attempt to bolster these metrics. It's probably for the best that these tactics are largely useless. An island that wants to get foot traffic from the mainland can't just build a few dozen islands around it and put bridges up between them all.
A useful resource on this topic is the post Root Domains, Subdomains vs. Subfolders and the Microsite Debate, which covers not only the weakness of the microsites as link popularity enhancers but also when microsites can be valuable. After all, we just launched one of our own with Open Site Explorer.
#5 - Last Click Attribution is Killing Analytics
None of the businesses I spoke to employed anything but last click analytics, which can tragically mask the value of all sorts of marketing channels and investments. Yes, Twitter and Facebook traffic don't tend to convert well, but who knows if those channels are filling your conversion funnel at the top and resulting in sales 3-5 visits later (when the customer searches for your brand name in Google, thus obscuring the true path of discovery). With cookies and lifecycle attribution, you can properly distribute your success to the right channels. Even just enabling first touch tracking in Google Analytics will make you much more sophisticated and accurate.
Personally, though, I think this is something Google (and the other analytics vendors) need to build into their products by default. We shouldn't be hacking up code and customizing to get this data. It should be right there in a tab called "conversion attribution" where you can see the channels that originally sent visitors who converted and get 2nd, 3rd, 4th visit sources prior to conversion, too.
I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to share the wonderful experience I had traveling in Glasgow, and to Stirling by train on the weekend.
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery on an impossibly sunny, early February afternoon
Stirling Castle, site of dozens of historical battles between the English & Scots
Our tourguide in Stirling castle, featuring matching Tartan pants and tie, along with a phenomenal Scottish brogue
The view from Stirling castle South to the Wallace Monument
The William Wallace monument in Stirling (built in the 1800s to commemorate Wallace's patriotism)
FYI - Hollywood's take on Wallace was not entirely accurate (surprise, surprise)
That's right, we climbed all 300 narrow, windy stairs to reach the top
Possibly Scotland's most magical treat - whisky in porridge for breakfast; a tradition I'm taking with me wherever I go.
We had a fantastic time in Scotland, and I was honored to participate in the Online Xcellence program. I hope Brian has continued success recruiting online marketing experts for the program; it's a truly worthwhile and enlightening experience.
p.s. I'm heading to Edinburgh this summer to catch part of the Fringe Festival and possibly catch up with my new Scottish friends again. Tomorrow, though, I'm off to California for OMS, Miva Merchant, a Y Combinator SEO Summit and then SMX West. Hopefully I can get over my cold before we depart.
Posted by great scott!
This week we take a look at how shifts in the engines over the last year have made it more important than ever to really pay attention to brand-based marketing.Posted by Danny Dover
This post is part of an ongoing series where my co-workers and I are working to build a freely available resource center of up-to-date SEO best practices. As we write this content, we are submitting them for peer review so that everyone on the Internet can benefit from collective intelligence. You can read more about the SEO Knowledge Center here.
The proposed SEO best practice for this week deals with explaining what HTTP Status Codes are and why certain ones are important to SEOs. These 3 digit numbers cause all kinds of problems for search engines and SEOs that are related to indexing and redirection. While the resource page linked to below is not as directly actionable as the soon to be released page on redirection, it still serves as a good broad overview of the topic. As SEOs, we would love to hear your feedback on the following areas:
Please let us know if there is something we should add, remove or modify to make this page more helpful for beginners.
HTTP Status CodesRemember, this page is just a work in progress. We would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve it. Please feel free to leave your comments below.
Posted by willcritchlow
It's time for a quick mid-week geek-out - I wanted to collect together a bunch of resources I have written on first touch tracking in Google Analytics including (for the first time that I'm aware of), the technical implementation details:
If you're the kind of person that unwraps your birthday presents early, you can skip to the punchline, grab the code you need to get first touch tracking working from Google code (don't forget to read the instructions!). Here's the meat from my detailed post:
Include following code anywhere above the Google Analytics code script in your page code:
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://attributiontrackingga.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/distilled.FirstTouch.js">
</script>
Move your GA code above any Website Optimizer code or anything from Google that might write a visitor (__utma) cookie and look for:
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
In between those two lines, you want to put the following line:
distilledFirstTouch(pageTracker);
Oh, and don't forget all of this is provided as is, with no warranty. I hope it will help you out, but only you are responsible for changes you make to your website and tracking code. Be extremely careful with live profiles and remember that you will need to do something different if you already use custom variables.
That's all for now folks. Enjoy your analytics, don't forget to drop comments with improvements, tips, tricks, abuse for writing such a short post etc. and if you need a primer on Excel to make the most of your new-found data, you can check out the recording of my conference call on how to be an Excel ninja (sign up for future calls here).
To distract you from this spectacularly short post, here are some really big things found on the internet this week:
Check out the depth of the ocean:
As well as the size of the earth:
I also recommend watching this one.
Technorati Tagsanalytics, ga, firsttouch, google, javascript, codePosted by Dr. Pete
Late last year, Google announced that they would be rolling out personalized search even for visitors who weren't logged into a Google account. There's been a lot of talk in the SEO community about how this affects the already dubious future of rankings, but it seems to boil down to one simple fear: does my client (or boss) see the same rankings that I do? I decided to put this to the test – take one client's real-world keywords and see how much rankings changed depending on how I measured them.