Posted by randfishToday we wrapped up our first ever SEOmoz training seminar - covering topics from keyword research to technical issues to search algorithms and social media. Despite the 7 straight hours of speaking on stage, I feel pretty good - the people in attendance appeared to have a terrific time and our after-hours party was still going strong when I left an hour ago.One of the most frequently asked questions during the seminar was around building microsites or leveraging microsite strategies for SEO. I know that Cameron Olthuis has written about the pros and cons of Microsites on SearchEngineLand, but tonight I wanted to briefly cover why I personally believe that microsites (or any secondary sites for that matter) are almost universally a mistake.Search Algorithms Favor Large Authoritative DomainsTake a piece of great content about a topic and toss it onto a small, Mom+Pop website - point some external links to it, optimize the page and the site for the target terms and get it indexed. Now, take that exact same content and place it on Wikipedia or CNN.com or even SEOmoz - you're virtually guaranteed that the content on the large, authoritative domain will outrank the content on the small niche site. The engines' current algos favor sites that have built trust and authority, consistency and history. Multiple Sites Splits the Benefits of LinksI often use the following illustration to show how a single good link pointing to a page on a domain positively influences the entire domain and every page on it.Because of this phenomenon, it's much more valuable to have any link you can possibly get pointing to the same domain to help boost the rank and value of the pages on it. Having content or keyword-targeted pages on other domains that don't benefit from the links you earn to your primary domain only createsmore work. 100 Links to Domain A ≠ 100 Links to Domain B + 1 Link to Domain A (from Domain B)In the diagram above, you can see my take on how earning lots of links to page "G" on a separate domain is far less valuable than earning those same links to a page on the primary domain. Due to this phenomeon, even if you interlink all of the microsites or multiple domains you build, it still won't be close to the value you can get from those links if they were to point directly to the primary domain.A Large, Authoritative Domain Can Host A Huge Variety of ContentNiche websites frequently limit the variety of their discourse and content matter, while broader sites can target a wider range of focii. This is valuable not just for targeting the long tail of search and increasing potential branding and reach, but also for viral content, where a broader focus is much less limiting than that of a niche focus.Time & Energy Is Better Spent on a Single PropertyIf you're going to ppour your heart and soul into webdev, design, usability, user experience, site architecture, SEO, public relations, branding, etc. you're going to want the biggest bang for your buck. Splitting your attention, time and resources on multiple domains dilutes that value and doesn't let the natural order of building on your past successes on a single domain help you out.So when do I suggest using niche sites or microsites?When you own a specific keyword search query domain - e.g. if you own "usedtoyotatrucks.com" you might do very well to pull in search traffic for the specific term "used toyota trucks" with a microsite. When you plan to sell the domains - it's very hard to sell a folder or even a subdomain, so this strategy is understandable if you're planning to churn the domains in the second-hand market. I know there are others in the search marketing and Internet marketing fields who feel very differently, and that's great, but my personal experience has led me to believe that sticking with one domain (or, if you have 50 domains, 301'ing them all to your favorite) is a better move in the long run.What do you think? Do you ever run multiple domains in the same sector? How have you seen that strategy benefit your overall reach, income, success?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by rebeccaThe other night I was watching Knocked Up, and in the movie there are a few references to "Googling" something. For example, in one scene the older daughter is riding in a car and casually says "I Googled murder," while in another scene Leslie Mann's character asks Paul Rudd to "Google" their daughter's symptoms to determine whether she has the chicken pox or a rash. I also recently saw The Bourne Ultimatum, and in one scene Jason Bourne uses Google to search for an agent's name, and later on there is a car chase where the guys in one car are using Google Maps on their dashboard navigation system.If you haven't seen these movies, I'm sure you nonetheless can think of some examples of Google being the search engine of choice in a movie. While my first example could be chalked up to "Google" being used as a verb to signify searching for information on the web (like saying "Do you have a Kleenex?" when you just want a tissue, regardless of the brand), the Bourne Ultimatum actually shows characters specifically using Google products. Either way, Google is clearly the dominant search engine in movies today. How many films have you seen where a character is searching for something using Yahoo or MSN (I won't even bring up Ask)? Google's domination got me wondering whether the screenwriters are just defaulting to Google or whether it's deliberate product placement. Whatever the reason, what's to stop Yahoo or MSN from increasing awareness and brand salience by "advertising" in movies? Is it possible for them to arrange some product placement? Why not have Kate Hudson perform a search on Yahoo in her next romantic comedy? Jason Lee can look for something on MSN in the upcoming (shudder) Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Or, they could go the "blatant movie tie-in" route a la AOL in You've Got Mail or Fed Ex in Castaway (hmmm, both Tom Hanks movies...might be a good idea to contact him, Yahoo and MSN). Another thing Yahoo or MSN could do is tie into movie promotions. Remember that "Google Pontiac" commercial? What if a preview for a typical action-adventure movie urged viewers to "Go to Yahoo and search for [insert keyword here]," and when they do they're taken to a cool page (something along the lines of the Lost viral content). I think there are several possibilities and options for the #2 and 3 search engines to increase their visibility to the moviegoing audience. What do you all think? Do you ever notice Google's repeated presence in films? Can Yahoo and MSN do something to change that, even a little?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishTomorrow morning starts my 8 hours of presenting for our first SEOmoz training seminar. As such, I have very limited time for blogging tonight, but I wanted to share this hard-to-believe piece of data:According to Compete.com(who buys their data from ISPs and has some "proprietary" methods of traffic monitoring as well), Yahoo! is the most successful engine at getting users to "click" a result. This would suggest that Yahoo!'s customer satisfaction rate with their results may actually be the highest and that Yahoo! is doing the best job of the three major engines in turning searchers into site visitors. Check out what else they have to say:...Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo! more effective at getting consumers the results they want....This data actually matches somewhat with reports that Yahoo! traffic is higher converting higher than Google (source: WebSideStory), though MSN supposedly has the highest conversion rate. Yahoo! also supposedly does the best job of keeping traffic on their domain - forwarding search referrals to Yahoo! properties like News, Sports, Entertainment, Answers, etc. - perhaps there's a correlation.I don't have a good answer here, and I can't say for certain if the research is accurate, but it certainly would be interesting to see whether Yahoo! users actually feel more satisfied with their results. As we've often seen - just because a product is better at satisfying the customer doesn't mean the customer feelsmore satisfied with that brand. Perhaps that is the non-Googlers' biggest hurdle to overcome.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by FluxxThis week, Rand talks about moving websites.  Aside from the usual 301'ing of URLs, there are a few more steps one should take to make sure that all of their SEO efforts aren't lost when the move is made.Video notes and extrasMy Whiteboard Friday on 301'ingStill picture of the white boardDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishMy post yesterdaycaused a bit of confusion about internal linking practices and I figured it would be wise to clear it up with a handy visual representation.In the example above, we have a website that wants to build search-targeted pages for 4 unique keyword terms:Wind Wind Power Wind Energy Wind Turbines In order to effectively communicate to the engines (and to users) which page is targeting each particular keyword, I've used anchor text from the generic "wind" page to each of the more specific subpages and, likewise, linked back to the generic "wind" page from those subpages with the singular anchor text phrase "wind."Why is this necessary? Shouldn't the engines be able to "figure it out" on their own, especially since those pages target the keywords by using them in the title tag, URL, headline, etc.? Well... Yes. They probably SHOULD be able to sort it out. However, we've seen a lot of instances where that's not the case, and it has detrimental results. The problem generally isn't that you can't rank the page at all - it's that the wrong pages rank for the wrong search terms, leaving users less than fully satisfied.Just imagine - you've searched for "wind power," but instead you get a general page about wind. You might be willing to read the piece and see if there's specific information about your intended query, but you might just as likely go back to the results and choose another sites. Even worse, sometimes the listing in the SERPs will dissuade the searcher from ever choosing your page, even if you rank very highly.The solution above tends to work particularly well in our experience. It's also a great way to get the "broken-out" results for both the general and specific queries. For an example of a site doing a great job with this strategy, you need look no further than the ever dominant Wikipedia:Google search results for "Wind"I'm never a fan of creating two pages with exactly the same keyword as the targeted term/phrase. Even if you can earn the coveted first two spots, my opinion is that you'll do far better by having the broken out result something more specific - you may even catch the searcher's intent before they re-try their search (or interest them in something they didn't realize they wanted).Does anyone use this strategy? Are there others that you like better when targeting generic and more specific variations of a keyword?BTW - If you read just one great post on SEO this week, make it Vanessa's 301 Sword of Link Power- any SEO post with a Highlander reference has got to be worth a read. And yes, I know it's faulty logic to put that at the end of a post about SEO, but I'm feeling whimsical this evening. :)Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by gillianINTRO FROM RAND:Despite pouring in 80+ hour weeks over the last month, Gillian managed to find some time to write her first content-based post for SEOmoz. Thanks, mom - you rock.As my job is the ‘business end’ of running SEOmoz, I don’t often weigh in on the blog, but today, I have some insight that might be of use to some and of interest to others. Rand’s recent blog post about Jim Collins’ book‘Good to Great’ got some interesting responses. I have more to say than a comment, and so, as I am famous for saying, “My put is”…I encouraged Rand to read ‘From Good to Great’, so it will surprise no one that I am favorably impressed by the book. I’ve read the Business Pundit’s reviewand note that his issues surrounding the book are not with the principles, but with the notoriety the book has attained, the simplistic sound bytes with which other reviewers tout its brilliance (why does he bother? They are merely marketers trying to sell the book), and the fact that thin-thinkers everywhere jabber about simply following five steps and achieving long lasting greatness in a company. All nonsense, of course. But so what? That doesn’t detract from the scholarship, the comparative studies, or even the conclusions of this valuable work.Collins never says, “Follow these steps and tenets and you cannot help but create a great company in one generation or less.” He merely notes that with some fairly clean, thoughtful scholarship and careful documentation, he and his hardworking team have identified some similarities in companies that have achieved significantly higher than average stock market returns for their investors over a reasonable period of time. Please note that this does not even say that the company was a good place to work, that it served its communities well, that it bettered the world, or that it produced any other desirable trait. What is interesting is that there are similarities in companies that achieved this financial success, and some of those achievements are not what we would have expected from the robber barons of more than a century ago. Some of the traits turn out to be fairly desirable for other reasons than the ability to turn a profit.I note that it is always ‘cooler’ to throw cold water on an idea, an effort, or a production than it is to demonstrate a serious, thoughtful support of the idea. This is especially true of ideas or endeavors which have won popular favor, such as best sellers. What could be more mundane than agreeing with ‘the masses’? I am often challenged myself and have always challenged my children to choose not to be jaded, to give credit when and where it is due, regardless of whether it feels cool, urbane, or ever-so-worldly to do it. I would encourage all who haven’t read Collins’ study to do so with an open eye, disregarding the foolish thin-thinkers and the pundits alike. Then tell me whether you see something interesting in the study as I did.Here’s what I found interesting. A number of noticeable-to-outside-observers traits were identified among the long-term financially successful companies. There are probably others that are not so easy to identify unless you worked inside those companies. I have no idea whether they might be similar among all of the companies studied. I will focus on what the study was able to provide, rather than focus on what else might be ‘out there’ for us to discover.The companies who achieved long term profitability seemed to be, by and large, places I would want to work. Not so much because they made money, but for corporate culture reasons. That was very interesting to me because I have always known – and am thrilled to report (although I am sure this also will come as no surprise to you) that Rand agrees with me – there are some products, services, and industries I would never, under any circumstances, nor for any amount of money, work for or with, or support in any way. That specifically includes the sale of cigarettes. Some years ago, when times were very, very tough indeed for us, Rand and I sat down to discuss what new or different industries we might approach and what services we might offer in an effort to change the course of our company and save it from the extinction so many of our competitors suffered at that time. We both agreed that we would never work for the tobacco industry. Even for a million dollars. We agreed that there are some things about which no amount of money can change your mind. Child pornography and cigarettes made the list.I was intrigued that the culture of Philip Morris seemed seductively enticing. I still wouldn’t work there. They still manufacture, encourage the addiction of, and sell instruments of death to ever younger clientele all over the world. But their corporate culture is such that they became a ‘great’ company. Great? I don’t think so. What Collins meant was ‘long term profitable’. Let’s not forget the difference. ‘Great’ is just a good marketing moniker – it sells books because "good to sustainably profitable" just doesn’t have that ring. (Also, sustainably isn’t a word, but I digress.)I found that putting SEOmoz to the test, improved clarity on each of the issues, forced me to think and rethink some of the decisions I was making - and that Rand was making - and encouraged me to look at SEOmoz with a wider lens. As I see it, the job of the  president and/or CEO is to climb the tallest tree on the highest mountain and shout to the team hacking at breakneck speed through the forest below, “Wrong mountain! Go that way!” Because we are small, growing like a weed, and always racing to meet our daily obligations, we tend to focus on crisis management rather than long term vision.Studies like Collins’ work help to jostle me away from the daily issues to take a look at some important broader issues. I read, with interest, Rand’s take on the state of SEOmoz. Although I agree with much of his assessment, my vantage point is a little different. I have a few years on Rand and many of you who also responded. Perhaps I can shed some light with my two cents.Does SEOmoz Have Level 5 Leadership?No… and yes. In the making. When I read the Level 5 leadership chapter I, like the Pundit, wondered whether it was not a little shortsighted. Did one leader really make all the difference? Was GE not a great company for years and merely ‘took off’ as a result of all the work that came for all the generations before? Yes. And no. I’ve run this company (under another name) for more than a quarter of a century. That’s more than a generation. It was small, family owned, with a locally based clientele, doing largely unexciting, non-innovative things for average companies. In other words, in no way would it be considered a great company. But I planted some seeds. I was personally honorable, trustworthy, creative, and my clients made money when they took my advise and used my services wisely. Rand joined the company when he was very young. I admit I both shepherded and pushed him beyond his comfort zone creatively, in sales and management.When Rand took over as CEO, he’ll tell you he wanted to, but wasn’t ready to do so. There is only way to become ready for such a role. As Nike says, just do it. I see the elements of a Level 5 leader in Rand. The fact that I devote hours to mopping up and doing what others don’t doesn’t make me a Level 5 leader. It makes me a good team player, a good sport. Likewise, the fact that Rand gets lots of press doesn’t make him not a Level 5 leader. A Level 5 leader’s ego is wrapped up in the success of the company, not in whether the papers carry his name or photo. Rand meets that criteria.There are other criteria which he will struggle to achieve. But I have no doubt that he will, because of his fortitude and will. The product of first generation Americans, Rand truly believes that he can, by sheer force of will, do, create, and achieve anything. He’ll attest to the many times I have driven that idea home to him over the years. So I will take credit for ‘growing’ this emerging leader, not for being one. My own company was fine, but small and local. Rand will take it ‘to the next level’. He already has, and I am honored to steer the course while he shoulders the mantle of that responsibility.Do We Have the Right People in the Right Seats?Here, I agree with Rand. We have some of the right on the bus, not all in the right positions. As we are small, we don’t have the luxury to sit in our ‘right’ seat all the time. Witness that Rand and I serve as the receptionist. A note about Rebecca: Rebecca’s capacity to learn whatever is needed, under pressure, is truly noteworthy. With this large base of experience, Rebecca will find her field of specialty. But it is her ability to excel in so many areas in such a short period of time that impresses upon me daily that she is the right person. As we grow, there will be even more valuable roles for her and I have no doubt that she will identify and fill them well.Do We Confront the Brutal Facts?Here I bring the wisdom of age to the answer. This one is the easiest one for me to answer.Yes. We have confronted brutal facts and survived because of it. Before the dot-com bust years, I had a traditional marketing and advertising company that also developed websites. From May to July of 2001, we saw the market for high end websites dry up overnight. We saw dozens of competitors go out of business over the next half year. We were faced with some brutal facts: 1) There was no more capital budget money in the client base we served to purchase websites. We could no longer sell to them. 2) Traditional print media marketing, specifically newspaper advertising, although it might sustain us in the short term, was a dying industry. We had to get out of it, not waste time in it. 3) If we were to survive, we had to continue to focus on web-based products and services and determine how to make that work or lose our footing in the future marketplace. We solved the problem (how is another story) and survived.Recently, we had to look at the ‘do not do’ list. Some of that was ‘brutal’ for me, if not for Rand or the balance of the team. Some of what we must not do involves saying goodbye to clients with whom I have worked for more than 15 years. I have seen their children grow, welcomed the arrival of their grandchildren. I have seen them leave prosperous companies and start their own. I have shepherded their new companies to national success and shared in their joy. These people have become more than business acquaintances. Today, I said goodbye to one of those dear friends. We will still handle a small piece of their marketing, but I will find a new agency for them. We are no longer in that business. Hard to do. Absolutely necessary. The ‘do not do’ list has been hardest for me.What is Our Hedgehog Concept?Premium content. Yep. No argument there. Oh – SEOmoz was around as a concept since 2003. The company was formed as an LLC in 2005. In a few days, we’ll change again and be a C corp. I’ll get around to blogging about the relative advantages for those of you who are ready to move on from the sole proprietor consulting model soon.Have We Created a Culture of Discipline?Here, I would waffle more than Rand has. Discipline is not defined by working early or late. That’s passion. Discipline is doing the right things – and tending to the do-not-do list. It’s setting goals and timelines and doing what it takes to meet them or changing how them and then changing how you estimate the time it will take for the next goal. It’s applying metrics to your organization the way we apply them to activity on websites. I think we have a long way to go at SEOmoz in terms of discipline. We’re starting, but it will be a long road, and we will all feel the strain of it as we put it place. I am convinced that without discipline, we will not succeed. Wish us luck; this is going to be our stumbling block. If we can master corporate discipline, we’ll reach our goal of providing excellent products and services to the growing SEO profession.Are We Turning the Flywheel?I agree again. We are turning the fly wheel. I will even say that it is becoming a little easier to turn with each passing day. I will confess to feeling weary from having tugged so long and pushed so hard to make it turn even once and then twice. I expect Rand would feel the same way. But now, I see the snowball or flywheel effect taking hold. With each launch, each improvement of existing service, and each new idea, the wheel turns more easily. I’ll let you know if and when I see the point of ‘breakthrough’.I see Rand’s challenge and hope more will step up and take it. If you’re running your own show, even as an independent contractor/consultant, this is a worthwhile exercise.BTW - Across the pond, Will Critchlow has put his own company, Distilled, to the Good to Great test. It's fantastic to see others being so open about their businesses.Technorati Tagsgood to great, jim collins, level 5 leadership, seomozDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI think that sometimes, we in the field of search marketing try to make the concept of ranking more difficult than it really is. True - there are hundreds of ways to build a link, an infinite number of keywords, thousands of unique sources to drive traffic along with analytics, design, usability, code structure, conversion testing, etc. However, when it comes to the very specific question of how to rank well for a particular keyword in standard organic results at the engines, you're really only talking about a few big key components.#1 - Keyword Usage & Content RelevanceWhile I don't believe in keyword density (reference: nonsense), there's no doubt that using your keywords intelligently and creating a page that is actually relevant to the query and searcher intent is critical to ranking well. My general best practice is to use the primary keyword phrase as follows:In the title tag once, and possibly twice (or as a variation) if it makes sense and sounds good (subjective, but necessary) Once in the H1 header tag of the page At least 3X in the body copy on the page (sometimes a few more times if there's a lot of text content) At least once in bold At least once in the alt tag of an image Once in the URL At least once (sometimes 2X when it makes sense) in the meta description tag Generally not in link anchor text on the page itself (this is a bit more complex - see this postfor details)For those who've done the nonsense words testing to see how the engines respond, you know that you can certainly get some extra value out of going wild and stuffing the keywords all over the page, but we've also seen that once you reach about this level of saturation I've described above, you're getting about 95% of the value you can get, and even the tiniest amount of extra link juice can make a page like this outrank a "super-stuffed" page (usually).#2 - Raw Link JuiceSome people call this PageRank or link weight or link power - basically it refers to the raw quantity of global link popularity ascribed to the page. You can grow this with internal links (from your own site) and external links (from other sites). A page with a phenomenal amount of global link power, even if the sources aren't particularly relevant and the keywords are barely used, can still rank remarkably well in Google & Yahoo! (MSN & Ask are both a bit more keyword & subject focused from what we've seen).Link juice operates on the basic principle that was used in the early PageRank formula - that pages on the web have some (low) inherent level of importance and that the link structure of the web could help to point out pages with greater and lesser value. Those pages that were linked to by many thousands of pages were very important and thus, when they linked to other pages, those pages must, by extension, also have great importance.Carrying this theory back to your own pages, you can see how raw link juice will have a large impact on how the search engines score their rankings. Growing global link popularity requires both link building (so your site has enough link juice) and intelligent internal link structure (to ensure that you're flowing that juice to the right places).#3 - Anchor Text WeightAs the search engines evolved in the early 2000's, they picked up on the usage of anchor text and found that by weighting the keywords and phrases pages used to link, they could get an even better idea of what pages would be about and which were most relevant to particular subjects. The anchor text of links is now a critical part of the ranking equation, and when seen in great quantity, it can overshadow many other ranking factors - you can see plenty of web pages that are weaker in all the other three factors I describe here ranking primarily because they've earned (or, oftentimes for commercial terms, bought) many hundreds or thousands of links with the precise anchor text of the phrase they're targeting.Note that anchor text comes from both internal and external links, so if you're trying to optimize, it's wise to think about how you're linking to material from your own pages - using generic links or image links may cost you some of the ranking power you'd otherwise earn by having internal links with accurate, relevant anchor text. However, you can go overboard here, so be cautious - and note that 100,000 internal pages linking with anchor text doesn't provide the same value as 100,000 external links with that text.#4 - Domain AuthorityThis is the most complex of the factors I describe in this post. Basically, domain trust refers to a variety of signals about a site that the search engines use to determine legitimacy. Does the domain have a history in the engine? Do lots of people search for and use the domain? Does the domain have high quality links pointing to it from other trustworthy sources? Does the domain link out primarily to other trusted sites? Do analytics and registration information and temporal link growth fit with expected patterns?To influence this variable positively, all you really need to do is operate your site in a manner consistent with the engines' guidelines. If you want to earn a lot of trust early on in a domain's life, get lots of sites that the engines already trust to link to you. And if you're looking to spoil that trust, link out to bad neighborhoods, use manipulative link growth practices that don't match up to queries or traffic patterns and play the churn & burn game.As a wrap up, I'd love to hear your opinions on these four factors and whether you think there should be 5, 3 or 20 instead.p.s. Remember that this post is my personal opinion only! Sure - I'm basing it on my experience, which is relatively robust, but I don't doubt that others have there have very different conceptions of what comprises the bulk of the rankings equation, so please use your own judgment (note our new blog disclaimer, which applies to everything you read here).Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis week we're diving into the hiring game - trying to find the people who will help us make both the free and premium content on the site even more valuable over the weeks and months to come. Jane's in charge of hiring our new customer service / office manager and Jeff's doing double-duty, seeking out both a web developer and a GUI designer. We've already received one resume that's so incredibly cool, I've just got to share:Brockway Sampson Applies to SEOmoz (for those who aren't aware, Brock is a bodyguard character from the ingenius animated series, the Venture Bros.)Despite the stiff competition, I'd love it if you checked out and shared our open positions on Craigslist (after all, the best people almost always come through community referrals):Dear Exceptionally Talented Admin RockstarsSeeking Web Development RockstarSeeking User Interface & Web Design Rockstar (yes, yes, we have a pattern of using a particular noun in our hiring posts) On to the link roundup for the last couple weeks!Gary Price notes that Wikipedia may not be the fully open system it is todayfor much longer. Danny covered Nielsen's Search Engine market share data- I personally think Google is much closer to 70-75% - Loren shows us Hitwise's numbers, which puts them ~65% Aaron Wall has some terrific Link Building Tips based on New Search FiltersDonna has a really good question for Adam Lasnik. I'd love to know the answer to that, too :) Sketchcastlaunched this week - I got to play with it in early beta, and I think I might give it a spin for a Whiteboard Friday sometime soon (need to get a pen input device, first). I'm so envious of Brian Clark and Copybloggerlately - every post & every title is linkbait, but no one seems to give him a hard time about it (maybe I just need thicker skin) :) Rae's got a terrific post on paid links that Google will never spot. Since Fantomaster's triumphant return to blogging, he's had some great posts, including one on Blackhat tactics(from way back in June) and one on defending from DDOS attacks. Alex (aka Shylock) has a great post on white hat link building (I like it mostly for the format)That Adam Guy is offering to answer your questionsin Google GroupsSpeaking of Google Groups - John Mu, webmaster turned Googler, analyzes stats for the forum- cool stuff.I'm one of those geeks who likes to take a peek at where design might be heading, and I think this postactually gets close.Don't worry about me... I'm not busy -  - also... What great links did I miss?Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishLast week, the New York Times opened up their 13 million document archiveand dropped their Times Select program (which allowed access in exchange for a fee). This move was covered extensivelyin the blogosphere and even influenced other giants in the online publishing world (like Murdoch on the WSJ) to question their own content strategies.The Times' decision wasn't made by any single person, but certainly a driving force behind the questioning of the paid content strategy is Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for the New York Times and About.com, and the CEO & Co-Founder of Define Search Strategies. I interviewed Marshall about his role in the TimesSelect move, his company and his strategies for large media sites.Marshall Simmonds (right) with SEOmoz's Si Fishkin (left) in Xiamen, ChinaFor those who may not be familiar, can you give us the back story of your entry to the search marketing world. How did you get into search and SEO, and how did you get involved with About.com and the New York Times?I got into search in 1997 with a marketing company in Bend, Oregon where I started my own search department focusing on SEO.  At the time I was also moderating and maintaining the I-Search digest.  The community all of us built was very strong and active - it was through I-Search I learned of the About.com opportunity.  After working on several big name clients I took a job with About.com in 1999 in what, I believe was the first In-House role created specifically for SEO.My responsibilities were (and still are) to educate the nearly 650 Guides and staff, in addition to setting search strategy. In 2001, About was acquired by Primedia (a large publishing house of niche publications) and 250 additional properties were added to my workload.  It was at that point I realized the centralized approach to enterprise level search marketing only goes so far and I adopted a method of pushing as much search information as possible to project managers and anyone who would listen.  This process of creating network evangelists allowed me to focus on high level strategy and at the same time leveraged the intrinsic knowledge of each property.Outside of your work with NYTimes & About, can you tell us about your company, Define Search Strategies- what kind of clients do you work with? What are the primary services you're providing? Who else is involved on the DSS team?Define Search Strategies is a division of the New York Times.  We provide high level consulting with companies interested in bringing search engine optimization, audience acquisition, and retention activities in-house rather than outsourcing.  This could mean training an entire company on the best practices of SEO, social media, interactive marketing, and establishing a search team or educating an in-house expert to take over the day-to-day SEO functions.Define has worked with a fairly large number of publishing clients, due to our familiarity with the space. One big advantage to this much exposure to the publishing space is we’re able to very quickly determine strategies for publishers that are not only effective in increasing online traffic, but work within the limitations of the client’s business model. Once you marry the editorial process with sound search marketing fundamentals, you can create an ongoing procedure that’s truly sustainable.You've been a driving force for how many large media organizations have built up their search strategies, but it hasn't been a path devoid of resistance. Can you tell us about some of the hurdles you consistently get from working with the web properties of large media firms? What are the toughest biases or habits to overcome?Ultimately, conveying the practice of writing for both users and the engines is our biggest obstacle.With publishing, the challenge is educating editors, marketers, business development staff, and senior management that the same process that sells magazines and newspapers on the newsstands also works for search.  That is to say, the importance of writing a compelling and relevant message is the key to online success.  What attracts the eye when you’re walking down the street isn't the same language you should use online, but the skills and talents to create that message are.  Search puts an increased demand on publishers to understand their readers at a much more intimate level if they really want to reach that audience and encourage a high level of engagement. This is where the NYT search team must be diligent as we're dealing with more than 150 years of entrenched journalistic and editorial processes.  Publishers are becoming comfortable with how the creative process can be adapted for online.  This ship doesn't turn easily, but as you saw this week by ending TimesSelect, the New York Times took a huge step in its commitment to users around the world and I give the company a lot of credit for making a tough decision that only strengthens its long-term strategy as a publisher, and improves the opportunity to further develop a broad audience and increase revenue.In your work, you're often serving as a go-between for the engines and the companies you help; what are some of the challenges of that position? Do you frequently find that your clients' goals differ from those of the engines?Actually, the goals of both our clients and the search engines seem more aligned than perhaps ever. More often than not, what’s good for the client is good for the engines, from a content perspective. Where it gets tricky is aligning what we can do and what the engines need. Best intentions on both sides won’t always make up for business objectives, difficult content management systems, convoluted URL structures, marketing efforts that end up cannibalizing search traffic, and all manner of execution mishaps. In general, the more people that participate in the process of content creation on a site, the easier it is to trip yourself up in the engines.The engines are more transparent about the mechanics of how they operate than they’ve ever been. For obvious reasons, they can’t go the whole nine yards, and in some cases there is less information available now, especially where backlinks are concerned. But we’ve come a long way from the days where Google was only communicating to webmasters via an anonymous message board identity. Of course, the new search giant shrouded in mystery is Baidu.You're a pioneer of the "Xth-page-view free" model, wherein the first few page views after a visit from the search engines shows the content pages without an ad overlay or subscription message (but subsequent page views will). Can you tell us about the genesis of that concept and the evolution of the idea? How do sites like the NYTimes (where up to 5? page views are free) compare with sites like Forbes that instantly show an ad interstitial to search visitors?Quite simply, it’s about valuing users.  If you do, don't annoy them with registration walls and interstitial ads when coming from search.  That was one of my first agenda items when joining the NYT - to ensure a positive user and search experience from the time a visitor clicks on a search result to their final pageview.  We orchestrated the push-back of the registration wall to the sixth click and eventually I'd like to remove it completely.   As you mentioned, the NYTimes dropped its TimesSelect program for paid content. Do you view this as a positive thing from a search traffic perspective? Is it something you're excited to see? And, what's your opinion of Bill Tancer (of Hitwise)'s perspective, particularly this - "Opening up NY Times Select may or may not help the NY Times attract a larger audience online. What looks more certain is that it would put popular columnists back at the fingertips of the wealthy young readers that could help boost advertising revenues."This is one of the biggest and most positive changes the NYT has made online to date.  It shows a dedication to users and a decision that will no doubt cause other publishers to rethink their strategy.  Make no mistake, opening up millions of entry points into one of the richest archives in the world will only have a positive effect for everyone involved.  Looking for information on the Battle at Camrgo in 1851? or Thomas Friedman's recent column?  It is now open to the entire world.  That can only help from a search visibility standpoint. As many people have correctly pointed out, TimesSelect was certainly not productive from a link building standpoint. But in fairness, it can be difficult to communicate what the long-term value of being part of the conversation and getting these links will ultimately be. Our SEO efforts at NYTimes.com had barely begun when TimesSelect was launched. Now, we have 2 full years of data that can reasonably predict the upside of our search optimization strategy.With the Times Select switch - what are the metrics you used to forecast and predict that the move would produce positive results? How would you suggest other organizations analyze their own decisions to make decisions about opening up content archives?It's about search referral volume, first and foremost. From there, you can go deeper and track how users convert and behave to project growth. Using page views isn't the most reliable measuring stick as search referral traffic has a tendency to be transient. Those users typically won't consume as much of your site as someone coming in through the home page or a category page. How would you suggest other organizations analyze their own decisions to make decisions about opening up content archives?When content is in a walled garden you're trading off long term search equity.  Ultimately the questions to ask are what are the 2 year/5 year traffic and revenue objectives?  As well what can be done today to establish a strong foundation and momentum towards maximizing the network's potential?As social media and the blogosphere have taken off, I'd guess that the pressure to push so-called "old media" websites into this new generation of interactivity would increase. Have you felt that in your position? Are you someone who likes the model of participatory and social media and would you (or do you) recommend it to your clients? Do you see value there?The NYT has moved gracefully into blogs within our network. Some of our more premier content can be found in DealBook by Andrew Rossor David Pogue's tech column. I've always enjoyed and promoted the need to engage the audience.  With the comments section we've done just that, pulled down the traditional wall between journalists and the readers.  Sometimes the responses are the best part of an article. We’ve found that a one-size-fits-all strategy for dipping your feet in the social media world is not the best strategy. Some communities seem to be natural fits on many of the social media networks, while a large number have virtually no visibility or traction at all. Of course, that presents its own opportunity, perhaps a bigger one.From your perspective, where are the biggest gains to be found on large, content-based, advertising-focused websites? Anything specific that you've seen across the board?In the case of established publishers, it’s in the archives. Making deep content easily accessible to users and search engines is a really sound strategy. It can be easier said than done, depending on how your content is generated and stored. Sometimes, the best quality content isn’t easily found, either on a site or in the search engine results.That’s typically due to accessibility issues.We've seen many large sites struggle with passing link juice down through their site architecture to get pages indexed and ranking. What strategies can you share to help large site owners get their hundreds of thousands (or millions) of pages into the engines? Internal link structure is definitely an ongoing effort that you should monitor. I don't think every site needs to use nofollow to sculpt PageRank, as Matt Cutts recently signed off on as a legit technique for webmasters.  It's definitely worthwhile to periodically review your site architecture and internal link structure, to see where some of your weak pages might be hiding. Halfdeck wrote a great article about third level pushthat's worth taking the time to digest. It is essential to test, measure and monitor your SEO strategy constantly to maximize every entry point and promotion opportunity.  In many situations conventional wisdom doesn't always play out.  Every site is unique, the challenge is determining what combination of factors lead to optimal results for both usability and search engines.  Talking about the search industry broadly for a moment - what's your take on the state of search marketing as a profession and of the people involved in search? Where do you see the direction of this industry going - are we on the right track or way off course? What would you like to see happen to make search marketing a better place to work?The state of search marketing continues to get stronger every year.  If you can put a basic level of professional acumen behind your process you'll be successful in this industry.  I still hear a couple times a month about bad experiences with so-called SEO experts. Inevitably, articles will come out that question the value of search engine optimization and label it as a black art - but as we say day after day it's simply making the most of your content. SEO shouldn’t dictate every decision made on your site, but it must be taken into consideration. We’ve seen too many companies set themselves back years in the search engines. Building a solid foundation of SEO into any online venture should be mandatory at this point.Social media is still in an infancy stage so to speak as it goes through a transition to the enterprise level.  At Define we do a very good job of taking a message and educating a company on the public relations approach to reaching out to the many social networks. It’s not easy. Whoever described it as the ‘new link building’ is right, assuming they meant it was just as much of a pain.For the SEO industry in general, there is a dire need for consultants and agencies to truly realize the value of the information given to clients.  Not only does the education pay off for a company years after the work is complete, but it can be monetized so heavily it makes me cringe when I hear what some highly skilled professionals and agencies charge.  Too often our industry is brutally under-valuing and exploiting the customized expertise it delivers.  Truly good SEO services take a vast array of factors and SEO experience into account for each new client challenge. It’s hard work that can last months, but there’s often no marketing effort for a company that will generate as much revenue and growth over the long haul. I know many SEO firms and consultants that are worth every penny and probably quite a few more. At the end of the day I'd love to see the SEO space finally place the same value on its services that our clients know they’ll receive for years to come as our strategies continue to pay off.The online world has stood up and taken notice of SEO, in a big way. SEOmoz has a big premium subscriber base, and you guys are referenced by the likes of Dave Winer. More and more folks are blazing trails as in-house specialists. We know quite a few and these people are invaluable to the companies they are working for. There are a bunch of SEO blogs that are fantastic.On a more personal note - despite having one of the best known names in the industry, you've remained relatively quiet in the online search community - blogs, forums, Facebook Your browser may not support display of this image.Is that an active choice to limit participation, or do you secretly wish you could blog, Sphinn and Twitter all day but lack the time?I read as much as I can, and between that and the hundreds of contacts I make a week, I try to leave enough time for a life. J Not everyone can be as prolific as you! We just have too much that needs our attention.Last question - tell us about one of your most exciting or interesting projects in the last year - what's something that's really surprised or amazed you in the trenches of search marketing?The awareness I mentioned above has manifested itself in companies being much more willing to set strategies that will capture search opportunities. This was of course, reflected in the decision to lift the wall on TimesSelect. People seem to get it now, how search plays a role in that kind of decision Those in traditional marketing, editorial and IT roles seem to be much more informed about SEO. It makes the job of implementing strategy much easier. There’s still skepticism, but most people we work with understand now that there are fundamentals that must be put in place to really drive search traffic.Thanks a ton, Marshall. Your insight is priceless.Do you like this post? YesNo