Best Traffic Tips

Archive for February 26th, 2010

Rotator urls are a wonderful tool, particularly for traffic exchange users. They are a real time saver. You simply submit the same rotator url to all of your traffic exchange accounts. When you need to make changes, you only need to do that once where you control the rotator url. You don’t have to login to all of your traffic exchange accounts to make the changes needed. I fully understand and support the use of rotator urls.

What I do not understand is the trend of putting other rotator urls inside of rotator urls. You know what I mean — when you see sites that have more than one rotator bar at the top of the surf window. Just today I saw 4 rotator bars on a site. Why is this a bad practice?

It really slows down the loading time of the site.

With most traffic exchanges, you have at most 10 seconds before the viewer moves on to the next site. You would like to have your site seen before that happens. Putting a regular url into a rotator url already slows loading somewhat because what you are doing is essentially redirecting from the rotator url to the site url and that takes time. Multiply that by the number of rotator urls inside the rotator url, and you will never get your site seen. Either the browser will freeze or the viewer moves on to the next site. Kinda defeats the purpose of showing sites in a traffic exchange.

It decreases the amount of your page being viewed.

Some rotator bars are fairly thin and unobtrusive. (I’ll save the rant on huge rotator bars for another day.) They leave behind plenty of space for people to see YOUR site, which is what you want people to see. Put a regular site in a rotator url, and you get one bar at the top of the site that moves your page down in the surf window. Put a rotator url in a rotator url, and you get two bars at the top of the site and your page is moved down twice as much. The surf window doesn’t get bigger. The viewing area of your page gets smaller.

It does nothing for your branding.

What will be memorable about your site is the overly-prominent rotator bars which are probably branded to whatever service the rotator is from. I told you that today I saw a site with 4 rotator bars. What was the site? I couldn’t tell you. All I saw was 4 rotator bars.

Now, let’s make a bad idea even worse

In your multiple rotators, why not add a cloaked link? One of those shortening url programs that also cause a redirect. Think about it. What would be the reason to put a shortened url in a traffic exchange? None that I can think of, maybe in emails etc, but certainly not in traffic exchanges. Then add one of the new bottom loading traffic bars with their own timer which takes even more time to load.

In other words, if you want your site to load quickly and actually be viewed in a traffic exchange, less is better. That is the main reason most traffic exchange owners and seasoned users suggest a quick loading splash page, keeping it simple, no clutter, no mess, not a ton of redirects or slow loading sites. Deliver your message quickly, make a strong call to action, that’s it.

Most traffic exchange site checkers now reject sites with too many redirects because they either freeze up the browser or never load in time to be seen. Food for thought, totally your decision.

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Bettina Hein is the founder of Pixability, a long-time HubSpot friend and partner providing video production services on the HubSpot Service Marketplace. You can follow Bettina on Twitter @pixability.

Forrester Research has shown that you’re 53 times more likely to get on the first page of Google’s search results if you have video on your page. But it seems so daunting, right?

It shouldn’t be.

Gone are the days when you have to spend $10,000+ on a video by acquiring a crew, hiring a director, booking a studio, etc. Creating online video doesn’t have to be hard, nor does it have to look amateurish. If you follow these few basic steps, you can — quickly and easily — create a video yourself that shines:

1. Think

The most important step in creating a marketing video is understanding your audience and your objectives. What content do your customers and prospects respond to? What is your goal for this video? For example, if you are looking to sell pre-fabricated chicken coops and know your audience is interested in chicken care, you could create video with educational content around how chickens need proper coops to thrive. Always think of your call-to-action: What do you want viewers of the video to do after viewing? Download your whitepaper on the advantages of prefab chicken coops? Go to your website and order?

Take 10 minutes and write down a bulleted list of the shots you want to take. Don’t get bogged down with this. It is better to go with your intuition than to over-think a video. You will need less content than you think because a good marketing video should be less than 3 minutes long.

Now you need to get an easy-to-use camera. Hands down, I’d recommend a Flip video camera, with the Kodak Zi8 a distant second choice.

2. Turn On All the Lights

Good light is essential for a professional-looking video. If you are shooting inside, turn on all available artificial light. Shooting outside is always a good idea. So if you’re shooting chicken coops, don’t use the brand new ones and shoot them in your warehouse. Instead, go to an enthusiastic customer’s site and shoot their chicken coop in action.

One caveat: never shoot someone with their back to a window, because it will black out their face. The same goes for shooting with the sun on someone’s back. Turn the situation around. The shooter (you!) should always have the light on your back.

3. Hold Still

Don’t go crazy with the camera — always hold your shots still. Don’t chase behind the chickens with your camera in hand. Don’t try to pan the landscape. Whenever you turn the camera on, count to 10 in your head and don’t move the camera during those 10 seconds. Then turn off the camera, move on to your next shot and repeat. If you follow this simple rule, you’ll improve your video by 100%.

4. Come from Afar, Then Get Close

Okay, so you’re at your best customer’s farm. Before you get into all the details of the chicken coop, stop your car at the farm entrance and get a shot of the location (the farm’s sign, the farm house or the mailbox with the name on it). Pros call this an ‘establishing shot’ because it helps the viewers understand where they are. Also, get a few shots of the chicken coops from a distance. Then get closer.

Very important: Don’t zoom, just turn the camera off, walk closer, then continue shooting. Get even closer and show off the fine workmanship of your prefab units.

5. Speak Loudly

While you’re at it, you’ll want to get an interview with your enthusiastic chicken coop customer. Customer testimonials are an essential element of marketing videos. People will believe other users of your product much more than they will believe a paid actor.

How to set it up: Find a quiet spot (no machinery or fans humming in the background, no crowds chattering) Get your customer on camera from the chest upward and tell them to speak loudly. Just ask your customer a few simple questions: What do you like best about our prefab chicken coops? How hard were they to assemble? Avoid yes or no questions.

6. Edit

The shoot is over and all you need to do now is polish. This part can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Use easy editing software like Apple’s iMovie or get help from someone who knows how to edit.

Important steps: include your logo, keep the video under 3 minutes and don’t forget your call to action. Add royalty-free music to set the mood and tie everything together. Use simple, fade-through transitions.

Once you’re done, use inbound marketing best practices to market the video. Upload it to your website and to YouTube. Add it to your email signature and link to it from your newsletters. Direct viewers to a landing page afterward to convert them into leads.

Don’t be a chicken. Get started NOW on a marketing video to drive visitors to your site and generate leads and sales.

Webinar: How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing

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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 Team

Every 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 @bhendrickson  moz Moment "From the day I started building the Linkscape prototype to the day we launched the first version was about 10 months. I think that project went well."  I am proud to answer questions like this in a confusing and self-referential way.	Chas Williams Software Developer  moz Moment "I work mostly on Linkscape these days. I wrote the code for anchor text distributions and the new views for OSE, so the OSE launch was a proud moment for me " My favorite Youtube video.	David Joslin Systems Engineer David on LinkedIn  moz Moment "Since starting in August I have worked to improve our uptime significantly through monitoring, tuning, and application fixes. " On Saturday morning I hang out with my kids until my wife gets her beauty sleep and then I try to get a mountain bike ride in before working in the yard and other chores.
Jeff Pollard Lead Web Developer @nFluxx Jeff on LinkedIn moz Moment "I make sure your website experience is a wonderful one! " On Saturday morning I like to catch up on sleep.	Kate Matsudaira VP Engineering @katemats  moz Moment "Helping bring SEO tools and technology to the next level" Why is the sky blue? Because of Avogadro’s number – the number of molecules in a mole determine the wavelength of light reflected (I learned this in my physical chemistry class when we had to derive Avogadro’s number if the sky was yellow — as a result I will never forget this bit of trivia).	Ken Woodruff Senior Architect Ken will have to remain a mystery for another day because he did not get me his bio information in time. To be continued…
Nick Gerner Senior Engineer @gerner Nick on LinkedIn   Nick on Facebook  NickGerner.com  moz Moment Nick Leads SEOmoz API development and is currently working on solutions for historical Linkscape data tracking. On Saturday morning I go for a run, then chase my cats Garrison and Ira until my wife Susan wakes up.	Phil Smith Developer @philhsmith  moz Moment "Working on sooper-top secret project" 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.)	Roger Mozbot Needs No Title @roger_mozbot  moz Moment Standing on a crate in order to be as tall as Googlebot. Raised by a protein-rich, startup-obsessed race of robot aliens. Can’t stand paying per click.

Marketing Team

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 Specialist @DannyDover Danny on LinkedIn  moz Moment Danny is at least half full of SEO know-how Rock, Paper or Scissors? Paper. On Saturday morning I…Kick ass and take names. Want to be on the list?	Jen Sable Lopez Community Director @jennita Jen on LinkedIn  moz Moment Having worked remotely for 9 months, I LOVE being in the office. The funniest job I ever had was… in college one summer I tasted beef. It paid well, but was really disgusting!
Joanna Lord Director of Customer Acquisition & Engagement @joannalord Joanna on LinkedIn  moz Moment "My focus is on introducing new audiences to our awesome resources and SEO tools. " My favorite Youtube video is… The Sunscreen Song On Saturday morning I… wake up, make coffee, check analytics, and then go explore my new home–Seattle.	Scott Willoughby Director-Conversion & Retention Marketing @great_scott Scott on LinkedIn  moz Moment Whiteboard Fridays Rock, Paper or Scissors? Rock! \m/ On Saturday morning I… wish cartoons were still as cool as they used to be.

Product Team

The 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 Moment Current Focus: 1) Ship a new version of the mozBar. 2) Something much bigger (that I can’t talk about yet) Funniest jobs: I once played a rock/punk gig at a high school party. Ended up being extra fun when the lead guitarist locked his keys in the van with the engine running (fortunately I think we had already gotten the gear out).

Ben Huff Product Manager Ben on LinkedIn  moz Moment "I focus on herding cats. Recently that included getting Open Site Explorer out the door, safe and sound. I’m currently working on doing the same for the new Keyword Difficulty tool." The sky is blue because blue light waves are the shortest visible waves coming from the sun, and scatter off of molecules in the air the easiest.

Matt Heilman Art Director  moz Moment "I make SEOmoz look good"

Operations Team

Who 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 Moment Arden keeps our customers happy!

Christine V. Director of Operations  moz Moment I do my best to increase the staff’s level of happiness and productiveness, much like Tattoo on Fantasy Island. If SEOmoz was a Lifetime movie, I would be played by William Hung.

Sarah Bird Chief Operations Officer @SarahBird  Sarah on LinkedIn   moz Moment I own legal, financial, HR, and generally help make everything run smoothly. I also champion the Marketing Department and the SEOmoz API. I love my job. On Saturday morning I… Sleep in and then go for a long run around Lake Union.

moz Associates

This 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, CO @Suzzicks Cindy on LinkedIn   Cindy on Facebook  moz Moment Cindy is a mobile marketing evangelist. She’ll be providing help in Q & A on mobile topics. Why is the sky blue? Because that is the way Google wants it? (We’re not sure if it will stay blue though – its still in beta and hasn’t officially launched.)	Duncan Morris Founder and CEO, Distilled – London, UK @duncanmorris  moz Moment Given that I always drone on about information architecture I guess I should really point to this post though at the time it came out this was my most interesting post. On a Saturday morning I travel around the south of England to the coldest and wettest playing fields in existence to play field hockey for Wimbledon Hockey Club. Of course in the UK we just call this hockey, but that would give you all the false impression that I’m rock hard and can ice skate.	Jane Copland SEO Consultant, Ayima Search Marketing – London, England Jane on LinkedIn Jane’s Personal Social Media Profile  moz Moment "I’ve written a couple of successful blog posts for SEOmoz (I worked as a full-time employee at SEOmoz from 2006 until 2009). My favourites are: Don’t End URLs in .0, What Rand and Jane Write When They’re Drunk, the follow-up and  A True Story. It’s about hookers." The funniest job I ever had was… I used to work for Rand
Kate Morris Kate Morris, Search Engine Marketing Consultant – Austin, TX @katemorris Kate on LinkedIn  moz Moment "My favorite blog post on YouMoz was Paid Search: Detaching From an Agency, which is what got me speaking on my first panel at SMX East 2008." I’m proud to be an … Army Brat. My favorite Youtube video is … Louis CK – Everything is Amazing, and Nobody’s Happy	Lindsay Wassell Q & A – Tampa Bay, FL @lindzie  moz Moment This post: Rethinking Duplicate Content On Saturday morning I… am awake before dawn caring for my newborn twins! I’m proud to be a… SEO	Michael Cottam Principal, Michael Cottam SEO Consulting – Portland, OR, Canada @Michael512 Michael on LinkedIn  Michael on Facebook   moz Moment I like this one, and it seemed to generate a pile o’ comments: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/its-a-feeding-frenzy-for-keywordrich-domains I’m proud to be a member of the downtown Portland Rotary Club and on the Ambassador Board of the Children’s Cancer Association.
Peter Meyers President, User Effect – Chicago, IL @dr_pete  moz Moment The post: SEO Cheat Sheet: Anatomy of a URL My most popular post on my own blog (by a longshot) is 25 Point Website Usability Checklist.  The funniest job I ever had was… Stuffing photo envelopes with a pot dealer and Christian survivalist. Why is the sky blue? … because The Flying Spaghetti Monster made it that way.	Richard Baxter Director / Founder SEOgadget.co.uk - London, UK @richardbaxter  moz Moment Hmm. I like writing about tools you guys do – Like this and this and pretty charts on ranking factors using Linkscape data like this.  And I really like talking about Microformats. My favorite Youtube video is… Eric Clapton Shreds – is pure awesome and always puts a smile on my face. One day match this level of guitar genius…	Rob Ousbey Search Marketing Consultant, Distilled – Seattle, WA (soon to be) @RobOusbey  moz Moment People seem to like my how-to and link building posts.  On Saturday morning I: often wake up to the smell of bacon The funniest job I ever had was: watching petrol drip down an inclined hot plate to measure the amount of residue. I won an award for it. Hotplate Rob they called me. Ahh, good times, good times.
Sam Crocker SEO Consultant, Distilled – London, for now! @crockstarltd Personal Fashions & Trends Blog  moz Moment I’m pretty new to the moz crew but I was pretty pleased with manning up to take on a "doozy" for my first Q & A and think I found a good solution to the problem I’m proud to be a… n Uh-merican, where at least I know I’m free! The funniest job I ever had was… working at McDonalds when I was 14 years old. My mom said "you can work for me for free 6 hours a day or you can get a job" we all know that Macky D’s is one of the few places that will hire 14 year olds and the rest is history.	Tom Critchlow Head of Search Marketing, Distilled – London Baby. @tomcritchlow  moz Moment My most loved SEOmoz post was this one, mainly because of it’s sensationalist headline… Headlines ftw. My proudest SEOmoz contribution was speaking at both the Seattle and London pro seminars in 2009 and getting some really positive feedback and comments. Rock, paper scissors? After years of playing poker I can now comfortably crush Will at rock paper scissors despite him claiming it’s a game of chance. I will gladly play any game of any sort for money.	Will Critchlow Co-Founder of Distilled, UK & US – London, UK. Though anywhere rainy appears to do. @willcritchlow Will on LinkedIn  moz Moment Taking credit for lots of things done by our team, I’m probably most proud of the London PRO seminar in October last year. My personal favourite post, mainly for the title (just google "space monstering") is this one. Rock, Paper or Scissors? I always lose this to Tom. Rock.

Boss Team

Last, 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-Founder @seomom Gillian on LinkedIn  moz Moment "I’m the corporate evangelist and international voice for SEOmoz. My role is to connect the the SEOmoz community with the SEOmoz team and to spread the SEOmoz brand to new audiences and markets." I’m proud to be a… Mozzer. Nothing feels quite so good as seeing the fruition of a life’s work. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Rand Fishkin CEO @randfish Rand on LinkedIn  moz Moment The Beginner’s Guide On Saturday morning I … am hopefully sleeping in (though perhaps a more accurate answer would be that I’m at an airport). I am proud to be a … husband. (Geraldine: Awwww!)

Thanks for taking the time to get to know us!

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