The Moz Blog

Taking a Deep-Dive Approach to Competitive Analysis for SEO

Say you've got a competitor or perhaps competitors that are starting to trump you on the first page where you've been vehemently optimizing your website(s) and building valuable links, and without a seemingly good reason. What is an SEO to do but to start digging? Well, a good SEO digs the basics and an excellent SEO goes much further to understand the demographic, suspected patterns and technical advantages the competitor(s) has/have.

Visitor Statistics After 1 Year of Business

Approximately a year ago, I decided to start my own website - a semiconductor supplier directory company called Semi-Directory. I admit it’s a bit of a dry topic, but please bear with me as this post isn’t about the site per se. Instead, I thought it might be a good idea to share my progress over the last 12 months, and provide evidence that SEO actually works! (duh - as though you didn’t know that already). Still, it’s nice to see tangible evidence that this is the case now and again. Right?

Whiteboard Friday - How to Get Awesome Links

A couple of weeks ago, Rand mentioned "awesome links" in the Buckets & Buckets of Keywords Whiteboard Friday. Since then we've had several people ask us exactly what makes a link awesome? Well, never fear, that's what we'll discuss today: what makes a link particularly high-quality and powerful, and how one can go about getting these radical links. ...

SEMpdx's Searchfest 2009: The Best of the Bunch

Earlier this week Rand and I spoke at the third annual Searchfest, put on by SEMpdx and a load of lovely sponsors. Loyal readers and R. Kelley fanboys (and girls) will remember that my first ever speaking engagement was at the first Searchfest two years ago. The organizers were gracious enough to overlook my profound suckitude and invited me back to speak about link building last year. This time around, they asked me to participate on the blogging panel with Stoney deGeyter and Heather Lloyd Martin. I wasn't sure what to cover since the panel details simply said "Blogging," so I talked about various blogging myths. It seemed to go over fairly well considering it was 9:00 am--I think my half naked pictures of David Hasselhoff helped.

Using SEOmoz Linkscape to Troll for Terrific Link Prospects

When it comes to finding links, since the dawn of SEO one constant piece of advice has been to look at your competitors links for opportunities. Unfortunately, this means wading through the muck in order to find the gems. How do you gather, organize and prioritize all of those links? Wouldn't it be nice to take a power-hose to all that mud and grime to more easily uncover the best prospects? It's not that difficult. Here's a step-by-step guide for doing just that!

Facebook Advertising - An Opportunity for Deep Targeting at Very Low Cost

The following post is a collaborative effort by myself and David Klein (DK), who does far more Facebook advertising consulting than SEOmoz :-) He recently visited with the Facebook crew and has been helping more online marketers get comfortable and invested in the space.

Top 10 Client Objections to Your SEO Services

So you're pretty much top of your SEM/SEO field in your neck of the woods and confident of converting most enquirers into satisfied, happy customers. What happens when you get to see/talk with a potentially new client and they come up with objection after objection to get you to drop your prices, or worse, promise something you cannot guarantee (e.g., a number 1 organic ranking on Google)?

A Review of Thinkvisibility

Over the weekend I was lucky enough to attend ThinkVisibility, a conference in Leeds (UK) where I was speaking on reputation management. Here's a quick roundup of the conference for you UK types - there's another conference in September and tickets were only £30 this time around which was a right bargain - just take a look at t...

Google's Sandbox Still Exists: Exemplified by Grader.com

For many in the SEO field, Google's "sandbox," a filter the search quality team created to help fight spam, is a relic of days gone by. However, we've been spotting new cases over the last few years, and I finally found a great example to share publicly (and got permission from the site owner). Grader.com, and the four subdomains underneath it - Twitter.Grader.com, PressRelease.Grader.com, Website.Grader.com & Facebook.Grader.com - are all under pronounced effects that highlight this algorithmic element's impact.

Reminder: Pre-Sale Pricing on Advanced SEO Training Series DVD Set Ends Today

Once again, Business Dog is on top of things: He told me to post a quick reminder that the special, deeply discounted Pre-Sale Introductory Offer on the new Advanced SEO Training Series DVD Set and the super-limited Ultimate SEO Training Bundle expires tonight at midnight. Thi...

MozPoint Distribution: A Case Study (Sort Of)

Recently while I was reading a post on SEOmoz, I started to think about the users of SEOmoz and the whole points system. I read one of Lindsay’s Twitter post saying that the MozPoint distribution system on SEOmoz is a case study in itself. I thought it might be a cool thing for all the users and SEOmoz staff ...

What Digital Experience Does Your CEO Need?

One of my strategic objectives this year is to get Distilled access to decision-makers closer to the boards of some of our large clients. It should be clear to all of us in search that the companies winning the search game are those prepared to think about it most strategically. I believe that in 30 years' time, the people running large companies will those who understand the unchecked flow of information - the marketers - and more specifically that technically-inclined breed of marketers currently only found in search.