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Archive for February, 2010

American downhill skiier Bode Miller gets it. For all of his sometimes not-so subtle defiance, he is pure and honest in his approach to skiing and what it means to be a competitor. Four years ago Miller was on the receiving end of some pretty tough criticism when he failed to win a single medal in Turino. In fact, he failed to finish on a couple of occasions. He was chastised for his aloof and nonchalant attitude towards his perceived failure. The fact is, he didn’t see it that way. Though I do believe Miller’s attitude toward the Olympic Games has evolved, even transformed, since 2006, I don’t believe his feelings about his performances have.

When Bode Miller comes out of the gate, he only knows one way to approach each race and that is to go all out — to hold nothing back and just try to get from start to finish as fast as humanly possible. Sometimes this means nearing 80 miles per hour while navigating unfamiliar and uncertain terrain. Guess what, folks? When you take an approach like that every time you leave the gate, you are bound to make mistakes.

When the world is watching, on the surface, a major wipeout or even a simple DNF (Did Not Finish) looks like a failure to a lot of people. Not to Bode Miller. He understands the risk involved the way he skis and he chooses to take that risk and learn from any mistakes he makes along the way. His focus isn’t on the medals; his focus is on the moment. “What can I do today that makes me a little better than I was yesterday?” Sometimes he strikes gold, sometimes he strikes snow and ice.

The bottom line is, we don’t watch Bode Miller ski because of his Olympic medals or World Cup wins (I don’t even know his World Cup record). We watch Bode Miller because we know we are going to see something special…every time. Sometimes that results in a gold medal, sometimes it results in a wipeout. Either way, Miller has found a way to overcome the fear of what other people might think; instead, remaining confident that if he gives everything he has to give, his performance will be remarkable, if not inspiring.

Why Bode Miller is an Example for Inbound Marketers:

One of the cornerstones of inbound marketing, perhaps the cornerstone, is content creation. There are several ways to create content: pages on your website, blog articles, webinars, videos, PowerPoint presentations, photographs. It’s all pretty low budget, yet most companies don’t do a great job of it. Why not? When you publish something on the Internet, it’s out there. People consume it and judge it. Your reputation is on the line. That can be pretty scary, and I believe that fear keeps some really smart people from sharing their thoughts.

Marketers can learn a lot from Bode Miller. Anyone who has been paying attention at all knows that the most successful people and companies online are those who aren’t afraid to take a risk. Sometimes the risks are small; commenting on a blog post or even launching your own blog to share your thoughts, ideas and expertise. Other times they could be greater; your first attempt at video marketing or taking on a Goliath like Google or Microsoft.

No matter what, if you have the right approach, you can only win. If you crash and burn, you learn. If you execute flawlessly, you reap the shiny reward of more traffic, greater visibility and more customers for your business. There really is no secret. If you are honest in your approach to creating content it’s going to work out in the end. There might be some bumps along the way, but the satisfaction of knowing you gave it a truly honest effort will be rewarding in and of itself.  Additionally, you will definitely gain a following. There is no reward without risk and there is definitely a market for authenticity.

Photo courtesy of Duncan Rawlinson

Webinar: How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing

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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

• Linking to page and domain from Yahoo
• Page Authority, Domain Authority and links from SEOmoz
• Alexa popularity (with graph) links
• Google index date and PageRank along with domain trends
• Dmoz listing and compete.com data

 Social Media pulls shares and bookmarks from a number of places

• Page Diggs and Domain Diggs
• Recent tweets about the page along with total number of tweets
• Facebook shares, likes and comments
• Reddit points
• Delicious bookmarks

 Page Terms displays relevant page elements to SEO

• Meta Robots
• Meta Description
• Anchor tags and follow attribute)
• Header tags (H1-H5)
• Bold/Strong
• I/Em
• Meta Keywords

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:

• Keyword search volume in Webmaster Tools
• Indexed pages in Google, Yahoo and Bing
• Improved keyword research tools
• More site suggestion information
• StumbleUpon share data 

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]

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36 months ago, Twitter was handling 5,000 tweets per day. In 2008 the number was 300,000. Last year it was an astonishing 2.5 million tweets each day of the week. 

So, where do we stand in February, 2010?  Just shy of 50 (fifty!) million tweets per day, or an average of 600 TPS (tweets per second). 

The new data was published by Twitter analytics lead Kevin Weil in a blog post this evening.

According to Weil, “Tweet deliveries are a much higher number because once created, tweets must be delivered to multiple followers.”  And, he wants you to know that the TPS numbers here do not include tweets from those accounts identified as spam.

While Twitter’s tweet-count data show strong growth, third-party data on other Twitter metrics show slowing growth. HubSpot’s recent State of the Twittersphere report showed user sign-up growth slowing, while Compete.com and Quancast both show growth of traffic on Twitter.com slowing.

 Webinar: Twitter for Marketing and PR

Win a FREE MacBook Laptop! Follow HubSpot on Google Buzz, leave a comment, and you can win a free MacBook laptop.  Get the full details: Click here –>

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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:

1. SEO as a Strategy, not a Tactic
   Yelp uses SEO as a strategy. When their community finds something new in the neighborhood, content is created. They are limited in scale only by the physical world’s local businesses. Plus, it’s only natural that local businesses with good rankings will want to share those via a badge and a link; it’s only natural that their top contributors will want to share the reviews they’ve given. SEO is a strategy – it’s part of what makes them the business they are. If you’re just thinking in terms of keywords in the title and submitting to some directories, you’re going to get lapped by someone who understands how to make content, links, sharing & search demand an integral part of how users interact with their website.
2. Start SEO in the Concept Phase, Not After the Site is Built
   It’s hard to do, particularly when you spend your first two years as a founder thinking SEO is a cross between black magic and BS, but SEO works best when it’s architected alongside a businesses marketing plan. I’ve mentioned in the past that I think VCs and angel investors should be asking about SEO in the first meeting – startups should be three steps ahead of that.
3. Build Accessibility First & Foremost
   I come back time and time again to the SEO Pyramid. It all starts with unique content that engines can find and users find valuable. I’m now the proud owner of a Y Combinator t-shirt bearing the tagline "Make Something People Want." All I’m asking is that you also make something Google (and Bing) can find, too. And, in concert with this advice, check out Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization to help solve that puzzle.
4. SEO is NOT a One Time Event
   Fire and forget works with smartbombs (or maybe not – scroll to section 5), but it doesn’t work with SEO. This is a constantly evolving field, and not so much because Google’s algorithm is changing all the time, but more so because 300 (or 30,000) competitors are constantly trying to produce better content and market it more effectively while the engines are constantly experimenting with new kinds of results and information. No product is good enough to survive without marketing – even Google itself just ran a Super Bowl ad. SEO is marketing, and as such demands the same attention. Ignore it, and you will fall by the wayside.
5. Analytics are a Religion
   An ad salesman comes to you and tells you that 20% of your exact target market is reading a particular magazine. By putting in a full-page ad every month for the next year, you can ensure that they’ll all know your name and many will buy from you. But wait… How many saw it? How many took the desired action? How many heard about it from a friend or read a loaner copy on a flight? You’ll never know. With SEO, it’s the complete opposite – every action has a trackable reaction. If you ignore the data, use last-touch attribution or neglect to build serious models that track the value of your campaigns, you may as well blow the money on a giant billboard on the 101. Who knows? Maybe the right investor will drive by and decide to invest… Just don’t count on it.
6. Clever Tricks Aren’t that Clever (or New)
   I promise that no hairbrained scheme to manipulate the search rankings by registering thousands of sites or scraping the web for open places to link or contacting 6,000 "friends" for a link exchange are either A) new or B) going to work. Apply your creativity in white hat ways and make sure it passes the Google web spam litmus test. And no, that doesn’t just mean it passes Google’s Quality Guidelines, it means you would happily show it to any engineer on the webspam team content in the knowledge that they’d actually WANT it to help your site rank better.
7. Don’t Let Search Dominate Your Traffic Sources
   If Google sends 90% of your traffic, your business has real danger associated with it. Why aren’t people coming directly to your site, being passed links in email, getting Tweets and Facebook mentions that send traffic? Why is no one blogging about you, writing about you in the press, commenting in forums with links to your content? These "natural" signs tell a story of a real business providing real value. The 90-95% Google trafficked site says something strange is going on, and Google themselves are likely to figure that out sooner or later.

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:

• Apartment Rentals Site – AirBnB (whose founders were kind enough to give me a ride back to my hotel at SFO!)
• Dead Simple Publishing Site – Posterous (I learned the official way to pronounce it – "pastarus")
• Concerts & Tour Dates Startup – Songkick
• Time Management Software Provider – RescueTime ( a local Seattle startup, and host of the Feb. 25 event)
• Gift Card Exchange Marketplace – Cardpool
• Real Time Search Startup – Scoopler
• Live Video & Chat Hub – Justin.tv

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.

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Many affiliate programs provide pre-written email messages for members to use for promotion. It would seem that using a pre-written message is the smart thing to do because they must have been done by a professional, or at least by someone who knows more about email marketing than you do. That might be a good bet, but how many other members do you think are going to use the same reasoning, and therefore, that same email message? Chances are, people on your list are on other people’s lists too. How is it going to look when your list members see you using the same tired message that everyone else is using?

You want to stand out, be different, in email marketing. Take those pre-written email messages and make them your own. Here are 3 tips on how to personalize those pre-written email messages.

Rewrite the message in your voice.

It’s time consuming to compose the perfect email marketing message. Save yourself some time and simply rewrite the pre-written message. Take the information in the message and write it down as if you were telling it to your best friend. That will put your own voice in the message.

Add a personal story.

Share a little tidbit about yourself. Tell a story about how the product or service helped your business. Share one important thing that you learned from reading that ebook. Explain how you met the product owner at the conference you went to last year. Put something in the message that no one else can.

Relate the product or service to a current event.

This one is a little tougher, but fantastic when you can pull it off. As I write this post, the 2010 Winter Olympics are going on in Vancouver, Canada. If I were to promote something now, I might say that the product will “give you sales worthy of a Gold Medal,” or that the service will coordinate your email marketing efforts “as smoothly as Olympic figure skaters glide across the ice.” You can come up with better ideas, I’m sure. Just use your imagination.

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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 link that Rand twittered was this one to the Financial Times. It’s a story about checklists. Yeah, *yawn* right? Well not quite – you see these checklists, used by all kinds of people from pilots to doctors, have

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.

That said, this is the internet age – why should we be forced to read anything at all when we can instead get all the knowledge we need through a short and catch video clip? Well, here’s the short and catchy video clip of John Stewart’s interview with Atul Gawande on The Daily Show (sorry, only available to US viewers I’m afraid – c’mon guys get your act together. I can watch the show in the UK, why can’t I watch clips online from the UK?):

As you have probably guessed by now, I was inspired by all of this to apply some of this checklist theory to our SEO projects. The main idea being that while we all know what to do – sometimes we forget to do some of the basics and by having a simple checklist at hand we can make sure we don’t miss anything out. There are obviously lots of different areas of SEO that this would apply to (and other areas – I think it’d work great for PPC) but I’ve chosen to focus on new projects. Below is a checklist that I am in the process of implementing at Distilled for any new SEO project which comes on board. I anticipate that it’s still useful for in-house folks too when launching a new site or project. I welcome your feedback and thoughts on this work in progress!

SEO Project Kickoff Checklist

Is billing set up? – This is useful to ensure that not only is the client in the system and set up for billing but that the project has actually transitioned from sales to operations. It’s also essential to check here that the SEO team knows how much the client is paying.

Is the project in the project management system? – This is a no-brainer (like all the things on the list!) but useful to ensure that you can keep track of the project. In addition it’s important to ensure client contact details are stored there.

Introduce all team members – Ensure anyone within the company who’s working with this client has sat down and knows what everyone else is doing. This is especially important if the client is paying for multiple services such as PPC, Web Development, SEO etc.

Do you know which URL you’re working on? – Often you’ll start work for a company but that business may own many different sections and URLs. Which one are you working on?

What is a conversion? – Whether goal tracking is set up or not in analytics it’s crucial to understand what a conversion is and how much that conversion is worth to the business.

Do you have access to analytics & webmaster central? – SEO without data is like the winter olympics without snow. Ensure you have access to the data from the very start.

Check for irregularities – validating analytics data can be a complete piece of work sometimes, that’s not what I mean here. What I mean here is just a quick sense-check that the site ranks for it’s own name, that analytics data vaguely ties up with rankings, PPC traffic isn’t appearing in analytics as organic etc.

Benchmark current data – The three data points I think it’s useful to benchmark (that you can’t go back and check later) are: 1) Link metrics (my favourite are DA and PA) – it’s useful to store a copy of linkscape somewhere too, 2) A count of indexed pages (yes, I know this is sometimes wildly inaccurate but it’s still worth noting down), 3) A snapshot of rankings for the top 20 keyphrases (full rank tracking/analysis can be set up later in the project).

Has a kickoff meeting with the client been scheduled? – And does the client know who their contact is within the SEO team.

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