Whiteboard Friday - Generating Unique Content
August 29, 2009
Posted by great scott!
It’s a common dilemma: When the engines constantly cry ‘content! content! content!’ you can start to wonder, "just how am I supposed to keep generating all of this unique content?" A daunting challenge to be sure, especially for large sites with high-volume pipelines to fill.
In this week’s Whiteboard Friday Rand takes a look at the three major content classifications - editorial, machine-built, and user-generated - to help you understand what exactly qualifies as "unique" content, why it’s important to your site, and strategies you can use to generate it. Enjoy!
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Generating Unique Content from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
Google to Clone LendingTree?
August 28, 2009
Does brand matter? That seems to be a question Google wants to challenge. Eric Schmidt offers quotes like “brands are how you sort out the cesspool”. Google’s search algorithms this year have put more weight on domain authority (which is often associated with brands).
But while Google is telling everyone else to build a brand, Google might be looking to compete head on with brands in many large verticals. According to the NYT:
“LendingTree recently learned that Google imminently plans to launch a loan aggregation service in late August or early September of this year that would compete with LendingTree,” the complaint says. “Lending Tree has also learned that Mortech intends to make its pricing engine services available for use with Google’s new service and will send information related to mortgage loan offers to be displayed to consumer on Google’s Web site.”
The complaint further says that LendingTree has obtained screen shots of a trial version of Google’s service that further indicate that it plans to “provide customers with conditional loan offers in addition to lenders’ contact information.”
Google made a similar test in the UK last year. This is just more reason to develop longtail content and try to build distribution channels outside of search. It seems if you are too successful with search Google may do some self-serving to compete directly against you.
- How many of these services can Google offer before it erodes their Google brand?
- Is your business model easy for Google to clone? What do you do if Google clones it?
And We’re Full!
August 28, 2009
When I launched the membership site about a year ago I decided to set a membership limit at 1,000. Recently we have been getting a lot of word of mouth marketing and our growth rate has surged beyond my wildest expectations. We recently raised our price to try to curb growth, but promotion associated with that caused another rush of sign ups and even after we raised our price we did not see any slowing down on new subscribers. We reached our capacity and are closing off new premium memberships for a while.
Ironic that success creates a host of other issues, but I care too much and work too long. And I don’t want to lower the quality of our customer interaction and customer service to scale it to the moon. Recently I watched some TED videos about career crisis and motivation. One of the most ressonating quotes was Alain de Botton’s “You can be successful at everything. We hear a lot of talk about work/life balance - nonsense. You can’t have it all. So any vision of success has to admit what it is losing out on.” It’s so obvious to read that…but I certainly needed to hear it. 
In the worst recession in 80 years (perhaps a depression) I am not asking anyone to cry me a river for getting too much business. It is a problem most people would love to have. But we are drowning in opportunity with our other sites doing great and this site growing a bit quicker than I was planning on. Since opening I have made over 15,000 posts in the forums, and the rate of posting has only increased as our membership has risen. Just a couple months ago I was at ~ 12,000 posts.
As I have poured myself into this site we built a community I am proud of, but am falling behind on some other fronts - this week I was late writing a guest column for another site, I have 1,000+ emails in my inbox, and I have grown far too chubby (as seen in recent videos).
Our current customers will keep getting the same great customer service they have been, but I just turned off new paid submissions so I can lighten the load for a while. It is hard to justify letting my health slide to earn a bit more when so much of the earnings just get handed over to corrupt bankers. If I earn a lot but die young I can’t really count that as getting ahead. Well I guess I could, but I don’t want to.
If you would like to be notified of when we have some capacity again please sign up for a free basic account (you get a bunch of cool bonuses) and I will let you know when we are open to new customers again!
Thanks for reading and thanks for your help in building this site into a strong well known brand with so many loyal customers! 
Oh, and here are some last minute keyword tips!
Youtube Extends its Video Monetization Program in the US
August 28, 2009
The prolific video sharing site, Youtube, has just announced that it will be rolling out a new arm of its video monetization program. Now it will allow “one-off” videos to be included in the Youtube Partnership Program (YPP).
Creating Search Engine Friendly URLs with PHP
August 27, 2009
In this article we will help you understand the difference between static URLs and dynamic URLs and the benefits of coding search-friendly URLs. We ll also explain why it is important to optimize URLs and how they impact search engine click through rates. We will introduce you to the basics of PHP URL structure the mod_rewrite and how to use it to produce static-looking search engine friendly links….
Save $700 on Intel Developer Forum 2009 Get an IDF promo code through free Intel(R) Software Dispatch e-Alerts
This Week in Search for 8/26/09
August 27, 2009
Posted by Sam Niccolls
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Before delving into industry news from the last two weeks, inspired by a pickup line used last night at the SEOmoz Training Seminar after party, I felt compelled to kick things off with a list of the five worst SEO pickup lines that no attendee of the SEOmoz Training Seminar in London should use this October.
5. Did it hurt? Did what hurt? …when you stopped ranking for ‘heaven.’
4. You know you can’t spell duplicate content without u and i, right?
3. I’m not sure if you pay $79 a month, but you’re a PRO member in my book.
2. Nice shoes… wanna rank?
1. My name is Danny, what do you say we 301 back to my place?
- Jobs that Leave you Friendless: You saw the bozos (er-um journalists) at Fox News published a list of ‘Top Online Marketing Jobs to Leave You Friendless.’ And yes, amidst telemarketers and spammers, SEOs were atop the list. But if you didn’t catch Danny Sullivan’s response, it’s worth a read, too.
- Click, Drag, & Share on Social Media: Meebo’s slick tool makes it that much easier to share. Whether or not this functionality is right for your site, it is worth taking a look at how this works by mousing over an image on MobileCrunch or reading more about the technology.
- Why Google is the New Microsoft: In a thought provoking article, Estately CEO Galen Ward, delves into the similarities between where Microsoft was in the 90s and where Google is today.
- The Demographics Driving Twitter’s Popularity: The New York Times article describes how an older demographic is the primary force behind Twitter adoption, but eMarketer also came out with two Twitter studies showing how marketers use Twitter over Facebook and how most people tweet about useless babble.
- Oprah’s Affiliate Smackdown: Last week was not a good time to be among the acai berry affiliates using images of Oprah or Dr. Oz without their endorsement. Both Oprah and Dr. Oz filed lawsuits against 50 online marketers who were using articles, video, images, and other such content to increase click through rates and sales.
- Why Craigslist is a Mess: Craig Newmark may be content with a small home and a bird feeder, but it’s hard to look at Craigslist’s "ambiance of neglect" and not wonder why the classified giant hasn’t done more to improve over the years. In his recent article Wired’s Gary Wolf takes a behind the curtain at Founder Craig Newmark, CEO Jim Buckmaster, and the inner workings of the company.
- Rock Out with your Stock Out: In addition to the digital distribution deal struck between INgrooves and Universal, social music service iLIke, perhaps best known for their successful Facebook app, was also bought by MySpace for $20 million.
- Continued Focus on Local Search: David Mihm and others received a myriad of questions at the SEOmoz Training Seminar this week, but mozzers are not alone with their interest in local search. MSNBC will soon weave more local search results into their site through the acquisition of EveryBlock, a site founded by ChicagoCrime.org founder Adrian Holovaty.
- DaaS Companies are Emerging: Wall Street Journal’s article goes into the successes of companies such as Open Table and talks about how data mining can be incredibly lucrative for data as a service (DaaS) companies who do it right.
- Meet Sheryl Sandberg: She narrowly missed Forbes’ list of 100 most powerful women, but Harvard graduate, ex-Googler and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is playing an instrumental role in balancing data protection with advertising revenue. And with Facebook lagging MySpace to the tune of hundreds of millions in annual revenue, it’s an area where the social network has room for improvement.
- 14 Reasons Enterprise 2.0 Projects Fail: We might learn more from our failures than from our successes, but with any luck this list of why enterprise 2.0 projects fail can prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from falling into common pitfalls.
- PR Firm Reverb Communications Creates False Reviews: Any PR is good PR, right? What about bad PR for a PR firm? Well, after being exposed for hiring dozens of interns to write fake reviews at the Apple App Strore, Reverb Communications now knows a thing or two about the absolute value of PR.
- US Websites Break into UK SERPs by John Sparks
- Increase Google AdWords Quality Scores by Enhancing User Experience by RandyP
- The Importance of NoFollow Links by Junseth
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There Is More To Optimization Than SEO
August 26, 2009
What is the purpose of that new page you’re adding to your site?
Is it to rank highly for a keyword term? That’s half the battle won, of course
After the visitor has arrived on your page, what do you want the visitor to do next?
According to Seth Godin, you probably want a visitor to do one of five things:
- Click to go to another page on your site
- Buy something
- Register for something
- Click on/view advertising
- Pass your message on to a friend
So, if you build a landing page, and you’re going to invest time and money to get people to visit it, it makes sense to optimize that page to accomplish just one of the things above. Perhaps two, but no more.
Keep that desired action firmly in mind when you design and optimize your pages. The first rule of optimization is to optimize for humans. Ranking a page, only to have visitors click away, is a waste of time and effort.
Optimize For Focus
In the SEOBook Forums, we offer site reviews as a service to members.
We often see sites where it isn’t clear what they visitor needs to do. This is usually caused by too many options presented on one page. By trying to please all audiences, we often end up pleasing nobody.
Decide the key action you want people to take, and relegate all other options. Either move some options to a different page, or reduce the visual weight of other options relative to the main action you want a visitor to take.
Here’s a great example of a site where the one key action is in clear focus: DailyBurn.com
An exception to this rule is when the user is very familiar with the site. A lack of options often means too many clicks to get things done. However, if your page is focused on the first time searcher, then simplicity and clarity is the way to go.
Visual Focus
Do you know where people’s eyes focus when they land on your site?
Check out this tool at FenGui. The tool tries to work out how people will visually scan your site. Some web statistics packages, such as Google Analytics and ClickTracks, provide visual click tracking based on user activity.
Before deciding on a template for your site, it is a good idea to test out your ideas using PPC. Knock up a few different designs, run a short campaign and use split/run testing to determine which page layout result in the user taking the desired action most often. Armed with this information, you’re less likely to waste time in your SEO campaign.
Design Considerations
There are few hard and fast rules when it comes to web design, because each element you add will affect what is already there. Or not there.
However, a few factors remain constant:
- The eye will be attracted to color blocks
- The eye will be attracted to human faces or forms
- Whitespace promotes readability - keep paragraphs short, use headings and bulletpoints
Make sure all visual elements underscore the desired action.
Where Web Design/ SEO Often Goes Wrong
The success of a page should be measured by one criteria:
Does the visitor do what you want them to do?
Often, other criteria will blur this vision. For example, a designer who is more interested in winning awards than ensuring your pages do what they should, may make a page pretty, but sometimes pretty doesn’t result in a desired action. An SEO can sometimes be overzealous in terms of keyword usage, which can result in dense text and odd-phrasing, which has the potential to put visitors off.
There is little point putting a lot of effort into attracting visitors if they don’t do what you want them to do.
A Word About Adsense
Positioning of adsense can be the difference between making pocketmoney and making a living. Look at Adsense as a visual element, as opposed to a block of text. Typography and text layout are design elements, every bit as much as graphics.
Are your eyes drawn to Adsense as you scan the page? If not, you may need to tone down other visual display elements, including color, to make Adsense Ads stand out. If Adsense is the way you monetize, the desired user action is the click. Are other elements on your page, be they links or graphics, competing for that click?
- In the forums, Aaron has a tested, field-proven killer Adsense template
- Split/Run testing adsense ads
- Increasing Your Revenue Potential
Interview With Paul Sloan
August 26, 2009
Paul Sloan has been a good friend of mine who has worked in journalism far longer than I have been an SEO. In this interview we discussed journalism, marketing, and public relations.
You have been a journalist for a wide array of publications. How would you describe the differences between the various journalistic roles you have played at the various companies you have worked for?
Let’s start with the obvious: Journalism is in major upheaval and how it all shakes out is anyone’s guess. Here’s what I am certain of: The broader economy will rebound and the business of journalism will not. Traditional media — by that I mean print newspapers and magazines — were struggling before the general economy fell into this deep recession and no miracle will return them to their pre-Web glory. To which I say, thank goodness.
People working at newspapers are bemoaning the death of journalism. That’s just not the case. The business models are dying, or at least they’re very sick. But journalism is alive and evolving at an incredible pace. Look at the places I have worked — CNN, Bloomberg, Fortune Magazine, Business 2.0, The Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report . One is dead (Business 2.0), two probably should be dead (Fortune and U.S. News) and one, The Tribune, is bankrupt.
Sure it’s rough, but it’s exciting and opportunities are emerging at a fast pace. I’m still amazed that The New York Times, which held out forever before introducing color photographs to its pages, now has its reporters live blogging senate confirmation hearings and MacWorld keynotes. Makes the whole debate over color seems sort of silly.
The Web and blogosphere do a great job keeping biggies such as The New York Times on its toes–both watching over it for accuracy and keeping its reporters chasing stories. But for now, the Times, the Wall Street Journal and a few others are still super influential. So, naturally, plenty of businesses and startups want the coverage in the established media.
As a journalist, what do you look for most when considering a topic to write about and an angle to write from?
The number one thing I’ve always looked for is surprise. A predictable story is a dull story. And I love story, narrative. So I look for people. Too many reporters, especially tech reporters, just write about the technologies. That’s fine for blog posts, but often behind technologies exist stories of persistence or controversy that humanize a story and make it memorable.
You wrote about a wide range of business and start up ideas in your Playing the Angles. How do you come up with story topic ideas?
Funny you bring that up. I thought doing that column was sort of silly idea when my boss at the time Josh Quittner asked me to do it, but I really got into it and it became quite popular. The way I found topics was old-fashioned reporting: Calling around and talking to all sorts of people doing things that seemed interesting and instructive. Make enough calls and eventually you land on something surprising and compelling. I enjoyed it because it was about real people — individuals figuring out creative ways to make money, usually on the Web.
That column died with Business 2.0, but to this day I get email from people asking about things I wrote about in those columns. So I recently decided to create a Website about entrepreneurs large and small. I was surprised, but PlayingTheAngles.com was available, so I registered the name and we just launched it!
How often did/does your story and angle change drastically while researching it?
That can happen a lot. Good reporters — and, more importantly, good editors — know that stories change as you gather facts. Everyone goes into a story with an angle in mind; it’s impossible not to. And bad reporters doggedly cling to that angle even when all evidence points them in another direction.
Does a person need to “know people” to get media coverage? What sets apart the coverage-worthy from those who are not?
If you want coverage about your business or idea or just you, sure, it helps to know people in the business. But if you’re doing something interesting, reporters are always looking for things to write about. Shooting off a well-crafted email is by no means a waste of time.
What should they put in the email? What is the right amount of information? When is it too much information?
The main mistake people make is to oversell an idea, or a client. It’s always better to be honest. You might be better off saying to a reporter something like, This idea might make a good little item, or maybe it could be part of a round up about others doing similar things. Too often people call to persuade you that their story is a really big story. In my experience, that’s never the case. Tell me how big it is and my eyes are rolling.
Write a brief email brief and keep it in check with reality. Know something about the reporter so you can appeal to his or her interests or areas of coverage. (Yes, I’ve received many emails addressed to other people or to me but the wrong news organization). And ask to setup a quick call or meeting as a way of getting-to-know each other. If someone calls and says, I’d like you to meet so and so because you write a lot about digital music and my client has been involved in three music ventures, then I’m sold. Those meetings don’t always lead to stories, but they’re time well spent for both sides because the next time I’m writing about digital music, the chances are good that I will call that person. And then when you want to pitch a specific idea for a story, you will have a relationship with that reporter.
When you are looking into the background or credibility of a source what are key signs that make you comfortable trusting someone? What makes you feel a person is underqualified and/or not trustworthy?
That all depends on the type of story. I’ve had the experience of believing someone completely and finding out years later that that person was looking me in the eyes and lying. Unfortunately, lying is part of drill, especially among business and in business journalism. All you can do is trust your gut, double and triple check everything, talk to as many people as possible, and, when it makes sense, verify claims with numbers and data. In the get-it-out-now pace of today, I constantly see numbers tossed out by companies and taken as fact.
Did you ever end up writing a story that you later regretted writing? If so, did it create new filters for your future writing?
Anyone who’s written a story about a companies has regrets. These are not he said, she said, stories. I’m talking about the stories that go out on a limb and say something like, Why So and So is the Smartest CEO on the Planet. And then, low and behold, that CEO looses his job a month later. Fortunately, that’s never happened to me. But there are plenty of examples of this from the past year.
Marc Andreesseen, who’s had his share of press coverage, beginning with the 1996 cover of Time Magazine where he posed barefoot, told me that early on he learned to keep the press coverage in perspective. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something like: “You’re never as smart as they say you are, and you’re never as dumb as they say you are.” Marc is certainly right about that. Magazines like Fortune want to run bold covers that say, The Smartest CEO blah blah blah… Those sell, or at least they used to. But everyone knows they’re complete hyperbole.
Some of your stories have spread all over the web while others were less received. What do you feel separates the stories that spread from those that do not spread as far?
For starters, certain stories are naturals for setting the Web ablaze. At CNN Money.com, for example, they go out of their way to write about Apple because Apple has legions of fans who read anything and everything. People click, and CNN Money.Com makes money. It’s that simple. I wrote a couple of big stories about the domain world, and both of those were huge on the Web. It helped that they were surprising stories — what? people are making money on domain names? Didn’t that end with the dot-com bust?. The second big piece, about Kevin Ham, spent a lot of time on AOL’s home page. These were discovery pieces in a way, and they had that lure to the reader that, hey, if these people can get so rich, you can too.
I started out at a newspaper in Anniston, Alabama, called The Anniston Star. I was always thrilled when readers wrote in about something I had written. Now, that feedback starts in minutes and can go on and on. I love that.
Did you ever like being pitched? If so, what was the best way to pitch you (and other journalists)?
This is a good question. I can count the number of stories I have written that began with a pitch on one hand, and they all have been little pieces that I did for the Web. The rule of thumb is that the good stories just don’t come from PR people. That said, there are no so many outlets for coverage and a limitless amount of space (the Internet vs. a newspaper or magazine), so PR people can be more successful.
Do you recommend hiring PR firms? What is the difference between good PR firms and bad ones, from a journalist’s perspective?
I’ve been helping some startups deal with this lately. The mistakes that PR firms make are just unbelievable to me. I’ve taken meetings from PR people who know very little about their clients. If it’s a startup, they don’t know if it’s profitable, if it has venture backing or, if it doesn’t, who the main investors are. So my first piece of advice is make sure your PR firm knows the basics about you.
But here’s the other crime that PR people commit, and there’s just no excuse for it: They no nothing about the reporter they are pitching or what the reporter tends to write about. This often happens because PR agencies buy lists and start making cold calls. If you’re hiring people to do this, you’re wasting your money.
Even if the PR person isn’t working this way, it’s just inexcusable not to know something about the reporter you are calling. There’s this thing called Google. Surely you can use it before you pitch a story about digital music to someone who writes about banking.
These are just a few of the blunders that PR people routinely make.
What are some easy and affordable ways to appeal to media members? What are some of the most creative and best thought out things people did to get your attention (or the attention of your colleagues)?
Are you suggesting bribes? No one’s ever tried that on me, although people often try to buy dinner (I generally don’t let them) or fly me places (I would never allow).
When speaking to a media member should the person being interviewed research the background of the journalist? If so, what all should they look at?
Yes, yes, yes. As much a they can. They should read what that person has done, and get a sense of what interests that reporter.
As a popular blogger in a hot field I get many media enqueries and sometimes I get misquoted. What strategies should entreprenuers use when talking to the media to minimize the risk of misquotes?
Talk slowly and, if you’re really concerned, use a digital recorder. But you will get misquoted, the concern, I assume, is that you’re words and thoughts are getting misrepresented. Well, you’ve got a blog. So you can have your say. My friend Damon Darlin at the New York Times recently wrote a piece that was critical of the way some reporting takes place online. It was a fair column, it seemed to me, but one of the bloggers that Damon quoted, Techcrunch founder Mike Arrington wasn’t happy. TechCrunch has huge reach — 7 million page views a month. And Mike, whom I also consider a friend, isn’t one to let matters die down. So he spoke up. The days of submitting a correction to the paper and hoping they run it are long over.
Who is the greatest guitarist of all time? Why?
Unanswerable question. The most underrated is Eddie Hazel, who was best known for his lead guitar work with Parliment Funkadelic. Soulful, biting and melodic at the same time. His playing on Red Hot Mama on Funkadelic’s Standing on the Verge of Getting it on is some of the tastiest and vicious guitar playing ever. This is a longer, live version:
How does writing a story compare with writing a guitar riff?
Bad writers often use too many words. Bad guitarists play too much, excluding genres such as metal that are all about notes and more notes.
A great guitar line, like a great piece of writing, has just the right blend of notes/words and rhythm.
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Thanks Paul! Check out his new blog - Playing The Angles.
Online Reputation Management with SEO
August 26, 2009
The fact that anyone can post anything online is a mixed blessing. Many companies have found much to their horror that others have posted half-truths or outright lies about them. What can you do if this happens to you or your company This is where online reputation management comes in….
Revit Structure - Your BIM Solution Fully Integrate Your Modeling for Structural Engineering, Analysis & Design.
Competitive Link Research with the Linkscape Index
August 26, 2009
Posted by Nick Gerner
Just before the SEOmoz PRO Seminar, over the weekend, we updated the Linkscape index. This is great timing because we’re also unveiling (to PRO members only, sorry free members) the prototype for a new tool! We’re calling it our competitive link finder, powered by Linkscape. But Tom Schmitz was good enough to explain things in a blog post some weeks back.
But before I dive into the new tool, as is traditional, some numbers:
- URLs: 39 billion
- Root Domains: 55 million
- Subdomains: 208 million
- Links: 443 billion
The sharp members of our audience will recognize that this index is, in fact, smaller than our last. Our index size is varying from update to update as we tune quality vs coverage. And this creates some issues around historical tracking. Believe me, we are working on the issue, stay tuned for more information around this scenario.
More interesting is an Index Quality Study we finished just before this update. From that study two things are immediately interesting to me.
First, we estimate that between 60 and 70% of what Y!SE might give you (including no follows, duplicate links) are in our index today (the small one, remember?). Moreover, we estimate that nearly 50% of what Y!SE will give you, we could too, but we filter out as duplicates, nofollows, or otherwise less important than other data we’ve got in our top 3000 links.
Next we’ve gotten a lot of feedback about how mozRank matches intuitive understanding. Sure it’s a 10 point scale, similar to Google Toolbar PageRank, but often people are finding it’s off from what they’re expecting. This is because of the data we’ve been optimizing our index for:
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In the past we’ve been concentrating on a more or less random sample of pages users might care about (the red bars). As it turns out, you guys care a lot more about important pages and want mozRank to be focused at describing the authority of these pages (the blue bars). So we’ve dramatically shifted the focus of mozRank toward these pages. Hopefully you should get a better experience out of mozRank and mozTrust for these high authority pages and sites.
We have more data for partners and power users. PM me if you’re interested.
Finally, here’s the new competitive link tool. (I know you guys already took a peek at it!) The idea is to identify authoritative sites and communities you could get links from, but don’t already.
What we do is take your site, and up to five related sites (maybe competitors). From those we find all the links the related sites have, and find the common ones. From that we create a check-list. These are the big important sites your industry is engaging with, but you aren’t.
Of course, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to get some of these endorsements too. I mean, you’ve got great content, products, tools, and services. Users want that stuff. Google, et al. want to deliver those search results.
So go check out your latest updated data, our new tool, and stay tuned for a Linkscape FAQ adapted from my PRO training slides. That’s a little something for those of you who couldn’t make it to the seminar
