Posted by randfishI'm in the middle of a wild 6-week stint. First Oslo for a week, then home for 4 days, then SMX Eastand a week in New York City. Tonight, I'm back in Seattle, but only for a few days - our SEOmoz/Distilled London seminaris just a scant 168 hours away. And, of course, on my return, I couldn't help but be compelled to do another set of SEO graphics (first series here) after seeing this great collection of Infographics & Data Visualization Blogs.These are somewhat disparate, but hopefully valuable. I've provided some descriptions and explanations below each:This first graph is fairly basic. In low-level competition results - long tail or relatively unpopular queries and sectors - the relative value of basic on-page optimization is very high. That drops down as competition increases because many, many pages and sites will have proper keyword usage and targeting. The engines will instead choose rankings based on popularity and authority metrics, where links play a much larger role. This isn't to say that it isn't still important to get the on-page stuff right; it's just unlikely to give you the boost you'll need to rank well in more competitive arenas.I've obviously chosen only a few link building tactics to highlight here, but when constructing this graph, I found these to be particularly interesting.Manual link building tactics tend to trail off in value (in my experience) as a site becomes better known, more popular and earns a collection of thousands-millions of high quality links. The incremental value added by another tiny directory or article submission site (or other small-site focused tactics like link exchanges or requests) becomes miniscule. Linkbait and Viral content is almost always high in value, particularly when you can craft content that helps to bring in links with the right anchor text pointing to the right kinds of places (like badges, widgets and embedded content). However, relatively speaking, the value is highest when the site is brand new and drops gradually with popularity. Media + Press links, like Linkbait, are consistently valuable, but the same principles tend to apply. Once you're a behemoth in your field, another link from the Wall Street Journal or the Chicago Tribune won't provide a substantial boost. Content licensing (or technology licensing) and partnership-style links are particularly interesting. For new sites, the value tends to be low, simply because you have very little content to license and few big brands are willing to make arrangements with you. As you gain traction, though, this technique climbs in value and, in my experience, provides some of the best ROI for large, dominant sites that can leverage their content warehouses to earn dozens or even hundreds of individual external links to every piece of content they produce through licensing agreements that require a link back to the original. The panel I spoke on at SMX East about PR Sculpting featured six speakers with six unique perspectives on the topic. While it was tough to find consensus around the minute details of PR Sculpting, the panel mostly agreed that the tactic is primarily valuable for helping sites that have additional pages they want in the main index that simply don't make the cut get in. This handy chart illustrates that principle, showing that, relatively speaking, you're only really getting value out of the practice of PR sculpting (whether you do it with nofollow, careful link selection, link consolidationor something else) when you have pages that languishing in search engine index obscurity (see this recent post for more).The reason I've made the value low when you have 0-20% of your pages indexed is that this generally corresponds with an overall lack of the required link juice to spread around. You need to get over that barrier before you can start to tackle where to flow it internally to get pages indexed.Similar to PR sculpting, XML Sitemapstend to carry more value in certain scenarios (and, interestingly, with certain engines). It's been my experience that Microsoft's Bing engine gives slightly more preferential treatment to pages in XML sitemap files than Google, but at high numbers of URLs, the value is high for both engines (I've not included Yahoo! because I haven't seen consistent results with their treatment of Sitemaps - and because I strongly suspect that 8-10 months from now, we'll be SEO'ing in a two engine world).p.s. As always, these graphs are based on my personal opinions & experience; please feel free to share your opinions and critiques.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!This week our very own Jen Lopezis at SMX Eastin New York. She took a few minutes to sit down with Googler, Maile Ohye(first name pronounced like the Disney teen pop-star, last name rhymes with "Oy vey!"), to get the answers to some of webmasters' most frequent questions. Watch the video to get Maile's take on how to best approach such issues as:Getting deep sites indexedHandling multiple sitemapsHow to influence crawl frequency and scheduleWhether or not to worry about spammy inlinksDuplicate content from scraper sitesAnd much more!SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Interview with Google's Maile Ohyefrom Scott Willoughbyon Vimeo.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by chenryThis 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.I’m sure many of you are like me and one of the first things you do in the morning is head to SEOmoz and check out the blogs.  Along with seeing the new posts, I'm also always checking out my MozPoints and watching them grow, or shrink sometimes.  In one of my past posts I did a case study of MozPointsand a few members discussed how they would like to see real-time related graphsof their MozPoints over time.   That time is now, I would like to introduce a new little side project I’ve been working on, Mozpoints.com.  Mozpoints.com started out as a way for me to see who is moving and shaking things at SEOmoz without having to read everything and try to remember who said what.  On the main page of the site you will see it shows the “movers and shakers” for three different time periods, daily, weekly, and monthly.  It also shows some thumbing and comment stats for the time period also.Entering your SEOmoz username or click on someone’s name will display a graph of their MozPoints.  Currently the graph only displays the lasts 30 days worth of information, but once more data is collected and stored, a new feature will become available to change the time period.  When hovering over a data point it will display a few important pieces of information, number of points, rank, number of comments, and number of posts.  MozPoint data is updated every night so this data in not exactly real-time, but close enough.Another great little feature is the dynamic badge for your website.  This badge is much like the original that SEOmoz offers but with a new feature that self-updates your rank at SEOmoz. I hope that this is something that the SEOmoz community will enjoy and use.  I’m hoping to hear suggestions from all of you and make this community grow and connect.  If you have any suggestions or ideas for MozPoints.com please feel free to contact me via SEOmoz or leave them in the comments.Special thanks to Danny for giving me the idea via his commenton my previous post.  Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Dr. PeteMany SEO topics are like good games - you can learn the basics in a few hours, but really mastering them can take years. One topic that seems simple but that generates a ton of questions here on SEOmoz is URLs: How to construct them, how to optimize them, what the pieces are, etc. In the spirit of great SEOmoz cheat sheets like Danny's web developer cheat sheet, I've decided to put together a 1-page guide to all things URL. You can click on the image below for a larger image or download the PDF(105KB).Download as a PDF (105KB)The guide is broken up into two sections: (1) "SEO-friendly URL", showing a modern URL and it's parts, and (2) "Old Dynamic URL", showing a classic, dynamic URL with CGI parameters. Both sections contain useful tips and stats about URLs and their optimization (based on SEOmoz research).(1) SEO-Friendly URL(2) Old Dynamic URLI hope you find it useful and welcome any comments and criticisms.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Sam NiccollsThe SEOmoz Social Media Marketing Guidehas been re-released and is now available. There is both an online version, as well as an expanded CSV version for those with a free SEOmoz account. The guide, which combines the Social Directory with the Social Media Marketing Tactics article, is an updated resource for marketers looking to expand their social media reach or obtain followed links.Previously, the Social Directory was only available to PRO members, but with the re-release of the guide we have included many of the followed link sources that Jane compiled in the original PRO-only document and we've made the resource available to everyone, with an expanded downloadable version for PRO members.    5 Tips for Using the Social Media Marketing GuideIdentify Greatest Link Juice Opportunities: Sorting the direct link source sites based on mozRank is a great way to help identify the sites that will pass the most link juice.Place Primary Focus on the Top 10: There are dozens of social media sites worth targeting, but you likely don't have the time to target each effectively. So try to focus your initial efforts on the most popular sites before investing time on sites with more niche communities.  Filter Based on Category: Sorting by category and deleting the sites that are least relevant for your website content is an important way to whittle down your hit list and prioritize your efforts.Target Social News Sites with Largest Community: Prioritizing social news sites based on community size is a great way to identify the news sites that could lead to the greatest number of visitors to your site.    Download Expanded Guide: An expanded CSV version of the guide, which has an additional 25 sites that are not available in the online version, can be downloaded from the "List of 101 Social Media Sites" tab. And for social media lovers, experts, and fanatics with sites to pimp, you can now add bling to your blog and hydraulics to your hypertext with one of Timmy's snazzy social media badges.If you have questions, feedback or want to share additional resources, feel free to do so in the comments on this post.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Lucy LangdonThe word 'incentive' is defined as a ‘positive motivational influence’. The purpose of this post is to explore the different kinds ofuser behaviourthat can be encouraged with incentives. Although this will hopefully include links as a helpful byproduct, the advice focuses more on increasing user interaction and engagement.(This post isn't about creating great content as an incentive for links- other ‘moz posts have talkedcomprehensivelyaboutthat.)1. Let's Get CompetitiveIf you run a site that thrives on user generated content (or you're thinking of adding this feature to your site but aren't sure where to start), then this is one technique to increase interaction from users. In forums, competitive behavior occurs naturally as users try to achieve various levels of status within the community. Other sites can mimic this behavior (and the consequential engagement it brings) but they may need a structure to help it along. Here are a few ideas:- if you have a product or place that you want reviews for, feature a 'Review of the week' (don't forget to email them to let them know they're featured!). It's up to you how far you want to take this- why not take your top 5 reviewers out for dinner once a month?- take a leaf out of Trusted Places' book and create badges for Local Experts- follow SEOmoz's example and create a leader boardthat is powered off thumbsAny of these incentives could be turbo-charged by adding a followed link back to the user's site.2. Feature your usersAllowing guest posts, or even 'guest content', on your site is a great way to let your users know how much you value them. If a site I spent time on came to me and asked me to write a feature for them because they valued my input up to now, I'd be bowled over (yeah, I know, it doesn't take much).If you'd rather not put the time into contacting individual users, try just putting a button on your site that invites guest posts or pitches. Savvy bloggers will be in touch before too long and you'll give off great vibes implying how much you value your users.3. Donate to charityPromising you’ll donate to a charity if someone links to your site feels a bit mafia-esque to me. Seeing as donations are a slightly gray area anywhere, I’d advise going after other kinds of beneficial user behaviour. For example, a client of ours donates about $5 to charity every time someone reviews his product. You could also use this method to acquire usability feedback, UGC and email newsletter sign ups.How to do itHave a look at your site and decide where it is this tactic could be useful. Ideally, users will be very close to interacting in these ways already- the charity angle just serves to push them into action.Depending on what you're after, present the donation option when the user is in the right place to action it. For example, it would be much more effective to ask for a review of a product once someone has actually bought one! Similarly, why not ask for usability feedback when the user leaves the site, sweetening the deal with a promise to donate if they acquiesce.You should definitely have a dedicated page that describes what you're doing, why you're doing it and how much you've raised. Include a link to this in any relevant call-to-action.If possible, have a small list of charities that you donate to and let users choose which one they’d like the money to go to.Once you've had the donations up and running successfully for a few weeks, let the charity know what you’re doing and suggest they might like to link to you to verify the process for your users. Win win.Make the process as shareable as possible: ask if the user would like their friends to know about how they can make a free donation to charity.A word of warning: even though this isn't an opportunistic scam and allows everyone- you, the charity and your users- to benefit, some people will have a problem with it. Make sure to be careful and respectful at all times.4. Product GiveawayIf you have an ecommerce site, do you have any small, cheapish products that you could send to bloggers to get them to review? If you do, then this is a great way to build relationships with bloggers in your niche and encourage them to talk (hopefully positively) about your company. I wrote a whole thing on how to go about doing this, but then Rob pointed out he'd blogged about it a couple of weeks ago- so have a read of his post about Link Building for Small eCommerce Sites5. Competitions and Prize DrawsCompetitions are a really adaptable way of incentivizing certain types of user behavior. Here are just a few examples that we've seen recently:- To get email sign ups - Fat Face- Win A Camper Van(very viral- has a 'refer a friend' draw as well)- To sign up to a newsletter- Silksleep.com - win a silk blanket- To get reviews - Pitchup.com- review a campsiteand win a tent- To generate buzz- the Hoxton Hotel competition- first set-number of entries win a room for a £1 and, of course moonfruit- enter anyone that mentions you into a prize draw (This doesn't necessarily have to happen on Twitter, but the real-time nature of it really helps to add momentum)- To receive blog engagement- New Scientist - win a piece of moon rockIf you have any other examples of using 'positive motivational influences' to encourage certain kinds of user behavior, I'd love to hear about them in the comments. SEOmoz Pro Training Series: LondonWe have just a few tickets left to this event and it's about to sell out. If you're the type to wait around until the last minute, you better get on it before it's too late. This is a can't miss event, Sign up now.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!It's that time again: Time to build some links and get those rankings up. So you put on your link-building hat, link-building gloves, and link-building boots, go out, build a few hundred manual links from directories, content sites, blogs, etc., but you still can't manage to beat that page with a tenth of your links...what gives?Lately the engines seem to be giving much more authority to sites with strong, high-quality links, so it could be that you're looking for link-love in all the wrong places. Watch the video to learn how to get the quality you need.As Rand mentions in the post, PRO Memberscan make use of the Top Pagesand Link Intersecttools to help them discover sources for high-quality links that will seriously help with rankings.Oh, and while I'm mentioning PRO, there's still time to get your FREE PubCon Passby purchasing a year of PRO! We've only got about a dozen passes left, so you should probably hurry. PubCon just raised their prices to $899 for a pass, so $799 for an entire year of PRO anda full-access PubCon Pass is an awesome deal.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Sam Niccolls   This week's roll up mixes a little bit of awesome with a little bit of awesomely bad. But regardless of whether or not you threw a Windows 7 launch party at your house, from Talk Like a Pirate Day to actionable SEO tips, the search industry had no shortage of entertaining headlines over the last couple weeks of September. 69 Free Tools to Improve Your Website:The Grok, Brian Eisenberg, who rolled out a self branded site, shares a great list of usability and marketing tools. Google Launches DoubleClick Ad Exchange:95% of Google's revenue still come from search ads, but with the new DoubeClick Ad Exchange Google is poised to increase their display ad business.Matt Cutts - Meta Keywords Not a Google Ranking Factor:Matt Cutts or Jay-Z? (If I had a nickel for every time I asked that.) In the video on the Google Webmaster Blog, Matt Cutt's breaks it down like Beyonce's beau: Google's got 99 ranking factors, but a meta keyword ain't one.Maintaining Visual Consistency During A/B Tests:Testing competing features can move the conversion needle, but at what detriment to user experience? In a post about maximizing the effectiveness of split tests Andrew Chen talks about the importance of having a central visual design.SEOmoz Linkbuilding Guide Updated:Thanks to Eric Enge's hard work, an updated version of the Professional's Guide to Linkbuilding (free for paying PRO members) is now live on the site. Notable updates include adaptations for the inception of Bing, changes in nofollow, and more detailed explanations in select areas.Seth Godin's Brands in Public:Though Godin's Squidoo powered tool was beaten up for how it was rolled out, he promptly did some damage control and changed the tool from being opt-out to opt-in.Delving into the Long Tail:Rand talked about long tail searches the other week, but Seer Interactive's blog post on the long tail serves as a great visual guide to conducting keyword research to identifying your greatest long tail opportunities.Top Web Analytics Pain Points:Integrating web analytics with other marketing solutions and verifying data accuracy topped the list in Unica's survey of most common analytics headaches. Google Analytics API - Event Tracking:You may use the the Google Analytics API to push data to your CRM system. Now, for those with video content, the analytics API can also be used for event tracking.Bing Continues to Increase Market Share: Google may still be the 800 lb gorilla, but Bing has definitely gained some traction over the last couple of months.Introduction to AdWords Bidding Tutorial Video:Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist, lays out some great tips for beginner's on how to get started with bid price management.Most People Don't Like Being Ad Targeted:The study cited by the NY Times stating that two thirds of people don't like being ad targeted sparked several follow up posts from both Greg Sterling and Matt Cutts. Regardless of your take on how the study was conducted, the article is worth a read. Go For it on 4th Down:The statistics support always going for it on 4th down, yet football coaches rarely do. The fascinating New York Times article begs the question of how similar thinking can be applied to your business.      Great Linkbait From The Guardian:The Guardian released several map infographics that give insight into the global recession. Pirate SEO Advice:Reading the SEO Skeptic post by Cap'n Long John Keyword is a humorous way to enjoy a belated celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day. New Google Keyword Research Tool in Beta:Google rolls out a new and improved keyword tool that has advanced filtering and also pulls in data from Google Insights. Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment:The Marketing Experiments Blog shares a list of seven things you can test on your site to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Yahoo's New Search User Experiece:Yahoo search rolls out a revamped look and feel with increased performance and more personalization.Searches forLinkbait Ideas:Anne Smarty's list of ways to uncover linkbait offers several useful queries you can use to identify possible linkbait opportunities. Top YOUmoz entries:* Examining the Top 150 In-Linked Posts at SEOmoz by MikeTek(Promoted to the main blog) The Zeroth Law of Writing for SEO by  Gil ReichStartup or Corporation? The Life Changing Decision by MgeteParable of the Lost Link by interactivevoicesWindows 7 Launch Commercial:Just when you thought it didn't get any better than Songsmiththe Windows 7 marketing team reminds us that Microsoft research is not the only Redmond team with an ad campaign that belongs on a VH1 awesomely bad list. And for those who have seen the original, the parodyis fantastic, too.  Bank Emails Sensitve Information to Wrong Emails:All PR is good PR... unless of course you are the Rocky Mountain Bank and you emailed social security, password, and other info to over 1,300 of the wrong Gmail users. Oops!  Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by jennitaWe're getting close to the end of the year, which means halloween, holiday parties and spending time with the family... That is unless you're a mozzer! The fall season has hit us full swing and we're out and about speaking and attending conferences, providing training and traveling from Sweden to Mexico to Vegas baby! Check out where we'll be over the next few months and hopefully we'll see you there! SMX East - NYC - October 5-7 New York City in the Fall... it's the perfect setting for SMX East. The air is getting crisper, the leaves are falling and search marketers from around the globe take this city by storm. Rand will be speaking the first day on the Revisiting PageRank Sculpting & Siloingpanel as well on the 3rd day on Dealing with Domain Names, URLs, Parameters & All that Jazz. You can find me speaking on the last day on the panel Diagnosing Technical SEO Issues. Nickand Adamwill also be around, so come find us! Jane and Robot Search Developer Summit – Google offices NYC - October 8 I really love the Jane and Robot Search Developer Summits. Being a techie at heart, these technical SEO conferences are right up my alley. This particular one is going to be exceptionally great, not only for all the talented speakers but that we get to go to the Google offices in NYC. Woot! Also, it's by invitation only which makes you feel really special (even if it is free). If you're interested in going you can request an invitation. As for us, Nick will be speaking about "Why it is Hard to Crawl your website (and how to fix it!)," plus I will be leading the Round table discussion for the Microsoft stack. Oh! I'll also be helping with registration, so if you see me, please say hi... I'm shy ;). London & StockholmECMOD London- October 7-9SMX Stockholm- October 10-13A4Uexpo London- October 14Gillian continues her world speaking tour (by this point she's spoken at 2 conferences in Canada, 1 in Los Angeles and attended the Social Media Summit in San Francisco!) by taking on Europe. At ECMOD, Gillian speaks about The State of Search Marketing: Where We Are, Where We're Headed & Why It Matters. Then she jumps over to SMX Stockholm where she'll be speaking on the panel  Landing Page Testing and Optimizationas well as the SEO Check Up session. From there she heads back to London for the A4Uexpo. WHEW! And the tour is only halfway over, check out where she's headed next!ExactTarget Connections 09 - Indianapolis, IN - October 13-15If you love email (and who doesn't?) then you should check out ExactTarget Connections '09, one of the biggest email marketing-focused events out there. You'll not only learn tons of great tactics for improving your email marketing, you'll get to see a keynote by Malcolm Gladwell, and a concert by They Might Be Giants! Who knew Indianapolis could sound so appealing? Scottwill be our lone mozzer attending, so find him and say hello!SEOmoz/Distilled Pro Training Series - London - October 19-20 The Pro Training in Seattle this year was honestly the best conference I've personally ever attended! The speakers were knowledgeable and approachable, the food was great (always a bonus) and the entire event was a hit. I can only imagine that the Pro Training in Londonis going to be just as great, if not better (I mean, have you seen the venue?!) Rand and Benwill be speaking plus Dannywill also be attending, equipped with a tazer to take down Ben if he starts rambling (or so I hear). :)We have just a few tickets left to this event and it's about to sell out. If you're the type to wait around until the last minute, you better get on it before it's too late. This is a can't miss event, Sign up now.SearchMeetups and World Brand CongressSearchMeetup New Delhi- October 20-22SearchMeetup Bangalore- October 24-26SearchMeetup Mumbai- October 30-Nov 1World Brand CongressMumbai- November 2-4This is the next round of Gillian's worldwind tour as she heads from London to New Delhi to begin her next round of speaking gigs at various SearchMeetups. She ends in Mumbai for a few days before heading south for the winter. MexicoExistes/Mexican Govt Internet Standards Session, MexicoCity- November 9-10SMX Mexico, Mexico City - November 11Viva Mexico! Gillian rounds out her international tour with a few days in Mexico City speaking at Existes and SMX Mexico. PubCon  - Las Vegas - November 10-13Hooray! PubCon Vegas! This is one of the most talked about events of year. Speakers submit their pitches during the summer and everyone has their hotel and airfare booked months in advanced. With up to 7 different tracks each day, PubCon covers everything from SEO to Affiliates. I particularly enjoy the Interactive Site Reviews because inevitably someone asks to have their site reviewed, and the poor soul has no idea they've purchased links all across the web and the reviewers reveal it. If you're looking for the mozzers, you can find us all over the place! Rand will be speaking on the SEO/SEM Toolssession on day 2 and on How to Buy Links with Maximum Juice and Minimum Riskon the 3rd day (This was my favorite presentation last year). Gillian ends her tour here at PubCon and will be moderating Real World Winning Tactics for Content Creationon the 3rd day also. Plus Adam, Arden, Scott and I will be around and we’ll have our annual Search Spam partywith a whole new deck of cards! (Ooooh I wonder who's on them!! Could it be YOU?)We still have 20 tickets left for our PubCon Promo - Buy a year's subscription to SEOmoz PRO and get a FREE PubCon 2009 Full Access Pass! The ticket prices for PubCon are about to go up, which will make this deal even better. Better hop to it!SES Chicago - December 7-11For the last event of the year, Rand heads off to speak at SES Chicago. Are you tired yet? I'm pretty sure we all are!Sooooo SleeeeeeepyWe look forward to the busy few months and seeing everyone! Remember to say hello if you see any of us, whether we look tired like Rand does above, or not. :) Ciao!Do you like this post? YesNo