Posted by JoannaLord

We have a lot of changes going on at SEOmoz (feel free to get excited, we sure are!) and with all of these changes to the site comes the need to focus on tracking. Internally we have spent the last few months redirecting our attention to not only the best practices regarding analytics and data mining, but really pushing ourselves to revisit our analytical processes.

You know what we realized? There sure is a lot of data. While I have always appreciated the reporting features in GA, I find that too often people take the reports at face value and fail to go deeper. It’s unfortunate since it is in those deep dives that you usually discover the data that can change your current course of action. So this post is going to tackle an approach to analytics that is often overlooked and (thanks to Google and their silly naming convention decisions) is rarely used to its fullest capacity. Get excited folks we are going to talk about benchmarking {Woohoo! Insert audience applause here}.

All of you excel spreadsheet lovers out there know plenty of ways to extract data and pinpoint specific red flags or recent successes. In fact, most people use analytics to simply analyze the current state of their account. While this is certainly a priority, it really is one dimensional. Instead of stopping there, why not go further? Why not better understand where your data was, and how you are measuring up? In fact, why not use this data to help inform your internal decisions as a company? It’s like an analytical epiphany—“using past and current data to help guide you moving forward.” Glorious.

While many of the analytics platforms out there have given us a number of ways to compare historical data to current data, we are still limited to two distinct time ranges (for the most part). It’s great to see those two ranges stack up against each other, but that still leaves a lot to be desired. Without going further you miss the "interaction" between those two distinct time ranges.

Benchmarking your data is a great way to discover more about this, often overlooked, gray area. Benchmarking simply means you set a standard at which you compare something else to. When used for data mining, it means you plot two distinct variables (time ranges, metrics, dimensions, etc.) over a period of time and then use these “benchmarks” to infer conclusions when making decisions.

You can then see  a more complete picture of your site’s momentum. In my opinion, understanding your site’s momentum is one of the most powerful metrics an analyst can calculate. If you can say with authority that you know how your site is doing and how it will likely be doing in the next week, month, few months, etc., you are in an ideal place. With data like that you can take more calculated risks.

*First, I want to throw out a disclaimer—a little over a year ago Google decided to integrate “Benchmarking” into their Visitors tab in GA. This just made things confusing in my opinion. The GA feature actually shows your site in comparison to a {very very very limited} industry pool of similarly {not really} sized sites. There is a lot wrong with the assumptions of this feature, but for our purposes here, when I say “benchmarking” I mean the act of plotting two distinct variables over time to extract insight…not the {ridiculous-I-can’t-believe-they-took-it-out-of-beta} GA feature.

The "benchmarking" feature in GA on SEOmoz

Okay now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about how you can benchmark your data to hopefully gather some insight into your site’s performance.

Know your bottom-line (and your "high-line" –yes, I just made that word up)

This is probably the most common approach to benchmarking. It’s a pretty simple way to analyze the current state of your account. You should know your extremes for every metric. For example if you are a company that sells a seasonally successful product, you should know what your lowest conversion rate is for the year, as well as your peak conversion performance. In understanding the extremes you can make better assumptions on how your off season stats are trending. While not the most accurate approach to data mining, benchmarking the extremes of your account enables you to speak intelligently, at any given moment, on how your site is currently performing.

Know your ratios & relationships

Am I the only one that always reads “ratio” as “radio”? I digress. Knowing your metric ratios and how they relate to each other, is a great way to quickly detect when things are headed south. Often, as analysts, we don’t realize something has gone wrong until we see sales are down. While that is an effective method of pinpointing mistakes, it certainly isn’t ideal. Wouldn’t it be nice to quickly identify issues as they actually become issues? Crazy, I know. Well this is exactly what benchmarking the ratios of your site’s metrics can do. At SEOmoz, we use ratio/relationship benchmarking to keep our traffic stats in check. We don’t just plot out how many visitors each section of the site brings in out of the total visitors; we compare those percentages against each other. This gives us a ballpark value to guide us. An example; “the X part of the site brings in roughly twice as much as Y, which brings in about 1/3 of the traffic as Z.”

The great part about this method of benchmarking is you can easily turn it into a visual representation of the different pieces of the pie, and isolate out when things start to shift. Below is an actual example Rand pulled together earlier this week (yes he does that sort of thing for fun! A true data-head!). In this chart we have graphed out the top trafficked pages on our site, and then plotted them against each other to show how they are performing in relation to each other.

Also see a larger, detailed version

You can see the significant drop in the blue segment (our Tools page), which was due to a redirect mistake we made (oops…Rand talks more about that here). By visually representing these sections, we can easily identify shifts in the relationships, which can guide us on where we should focus our attentions (aka fix our silly SEO mistake ASAP!).

Know the norm

Okay I know, I know…I talked a whole lot of trash above on the GA benchmarking feature, and here I am talking about “knowing the norm,” but approaching data analysis this way can be insightful. Knowing and using industry standards in benchmarking can efficiently identify low hanging fruit.

However, the actual GA benchmarking tab is a poor example of this. Keep in mind that sites have to opt into the benchmarking, so (a.) this feature might not even have your industry represented and (b.) you have no way of knowing how many sites these “standards” are calculated on. Also keep in mind there are only three buckets for website “size” in this feature—small, medium, and large. WTF right? Yeah, since when do all websites fit into those three sizes? What am I ordering a latte over here?

With that said, it’s worth knowing the vital metric standards for your industry. If you see that similar sites to your own have a bounce rate of around 40% and you are chilling around 65%, while all the other metrics look closer in range, then you can assume this metric is where you should direct your optimization efforts. This approach isn’t as scalable or as accurate as other benchmarking methods, but it’s definitely worth a mention, if only for peace of mind.

Know the limits

While benchmarking is incredibly effective for things like trending, projecting, and exploring the data, it’s important to know the limits of the process. It is meant to be a discovery process, not a scientific formula. Just like anything else you take away from the data, it is just an insight, not a guarantee. You are making assumptions based on past performances, and performances change. So one word of caution to all of you data-heads out there—benchmarking is a great tool to add to your bag of tricks, but it is only one of many you should be using. Don’t get so caught up in forming relationships between the metrics and dimensions of your site that you lose perspective on the independent variables themselves.

In conclusion

Get in there. I mean it, seriously. I know we are all crazy busy, but that shouldn’t translate into a two minute GA log-in, a quick glance at the vital metrics and a few automated reports. Our analytics are meant to be explored. Benchmarking is one of those processes that may take an extra hour or two, but discoveries made during those few hours can be instrumental in guiding your company’s decisions.

Confession: At SEOmoz we haven’t always been the best with analytics and tracking, but in the past half a year we have refocused our energies on truly knowing what our users are doing, how our site is performing, and finding opportunities within the data. It’s time consuming, and tricky, and what you discover is not always fun to find out, but it has certainly helped us redirect resources where they are needed.

Over the next few months we are rolling out all sorts of good stuff, {the Chrome toolbar launch was just a teaser my friends }. We are using processes like benchmarking to better prepare us for these changes. Taking on new challenges as a company is an awesome thing, but doing it with a little data to steer you, makes the ride even more fun.

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Posted by Danny Dover

Well folks, this may be the biggest tool introduction since Ryan Seacrest started hosting American Idol. Today we are launching our SEO toolbar for Google’s Chrome browser. This sexy beast is full to the brim with SEO insight and time-saving SEO goodness. This free add-on is ripe for picking and available for download right this second.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

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Whether it’s from Twitter, Facebook, email or comments here on the blog, almost every day we get some sort of request for a Chrome Toolbar. We knew there was a high need for it, and wanted to make sure that we didn’t rush and put together something unmozworthy. The new toolbar is pretty baller if I do say so myself (which I just did). It works very similarly to a toolbar in Firefox where it displays across the top of the screen, but with the ability to easily drop it down to the bottom of the page as well.

The new Chrome toolbar has most of the same features as the Firefox edition, but if you want to learn more… please keep reading.

 

So How Does This Help Me?

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1. Search Results Overlay

This new Search Engine Results Page overlay was designed to offer the most relevant link data without getting in the way. You can now use our toolbar to see which search results are getting the most links, and click Explore to run a full analysis in Open Site Explorer. To turn on this overlay, click the settings button on the toolbar, and select SERP Overlay.

 
 

"I get the best ‘feel’ for abstract metrics by seeing them in familiar places. I find it easiest to understand the new metrics by seeing them on search results I’m familiar with; as an added bonus, this is one of the most helpful analyses you can do when looking at a new SERP for the first time." –Will Critchlow

2. Quickly find important SEO information with the Analyze Page Overlay

Our analyze page overlay provides quick access to useful data points which include:

• On-page Optimization Elements – All of the essential SEO on-page elements (title tag, meta description, meta robots, rel canonical) are in one place.
• Location Data – As local search becomes more important, the value of information like server location increase.
• Google cache – Want to see exactly what Google saw when it’s bot crawled a given site. The link to Google’s cache will get you there.

 

"The overlay is still the most valuable thing for me. I must use it 5+ times every day to get quick info about how many links are on a page, whether it’s using rel="canonical" or whether the keywords are properly included in the right page elements. I hate using ‘view source’ and searching through code; overlay FTW!" –Rand Fishkin

3. Quick Access to Tools from SEOmoz and Third Parties

The tools dropdown has been expanded to include fast access to the latest SEOmoz tools as well as a wealth of other helpful resources, including traffic data, Twitter tools, and domain information.

 

What if I find a bug?

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Reporting Bugs

The best way to report bugs is to e-mail us at customerservice(at symbol)seomoz.org. This is the quickest way to get into our development queue.

Known Issues

1. The toolbar overlays some of the page content. We attempted to inject the CSS into the page and push down the page content, but this ended up breaking some useful sites (like Twitter) so we overlay the page instead , but do now offer the ability to display the toolbar at the bottom of the page, which should hopefully help, when you’ve just got to see the Facebook nav.

2. Because of the way the toolbar is rendered as part of the page, it only shows up when the page loads, so if the toolbar is turned on while other windows already have loaded content, you will need to click refresh to see the toolbar. Unfortunately, this is also the case when you open a new chrome window, since chrome shows cached content on open to appear faster.

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We hope you enjoy the new toolbar. Please give it a try, and be sure to post feedback in the comments below.

 

Not yet a Chrome fan? Still plugging away in good ol’ Firefox? Well we haven’t forgotten about you! You were our first love, and can still be downloaded here.

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I’m preparing a presentation on ‘Finding Readers for your Blog’ which I’ll be giving at the Melbourne Blog Training Day next Tuesday.

It’s got me thinking back to some of the bigger days of traffic that I’ve had on my own blogs over the years and I thought I’d open up some discussion on the topic to see if we can identify any trends.

What was your biggest day of Traffic (or ‘days’ if you can think of more than one) and what happened to make them occur?

I asked this on Twitter yesterday and it was interesting to see the responses. Some of the reasons giving included:

• controversial posts
• creative posts
• random links from bigger sites
• social bookmarking events (getting popular on Digg or Delicious)
• ranking high for terms in Google around big news events
• breaking a scoop news story

I’m sure we’ll see some of these themes in your experiences but know that there will be other themes too.

For me there have been many bigger than normal days over the last 8 years. Two that spring to mind include:

• My Six Figure Blogging Moment – I had been blogging for a while and suddenly realised that I was on track for over $100,000 in a year earnings from my blogs. The first time I mentioned it was in an interview that I did. I didn’t really think about the implications of talking about it at the time but that interview went viral – as did my followup post. What kicked it all off was a mention on Slashdot (which at the time was equivalent to getting on the front page of Digg).
• Front page of Yahoo (sort of) – then there was the day that a post on my photography blog was featured by one of Yahoo’s tech blogs. That in itself didn’t sent much traffic but when that particular Yahoo blog’s post was featured on the front page of Yahoo for 4-5 hours one day I saw traffic hit my blog like I’ve never seen traffic before or since. I don’t remember the exact numbers but I saw more traffic from that 4-5 hours than I’d normally see in a week of traffic.

So now it’s over to you. What Was Your Biggest Traffic Day and Why did it Happen?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Was Your Biggest Traffic Day?

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Mobile is definitely on everyone’s mind these days. In this interview with WebProNews, Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile talks about some popular mobile trends that people should watch closely. Applications are one of the big drivers to mobile and, incidentally, not just iPhone apps. Google’s Android and other platforms are creating their own marketplace as well.

In regards to apps, she points out that many people use them for search, which essentially takes away from search engine traffic. For this reason, she advises local businesses to optimize for apps in addition to optimizing for mobile search.

Krum also discusses the idea of augmented reality, which is typically in the form of an app. If a user points their phone toward an object or location, it puts a digital layer over it that provides information. One example of this is Wikitude. It lets users know if there is a Wikipedia article on the object or location.

Geolocation is another hot mobile area with sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla on the rise. Krum believes these platforms can be very valuable for coupons, loyalty programs, and more.

To compile her mobile ideas together, Krum also recently wrote a book entitled Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customer No Matter Where They Are. She says it provides a comprehensive view of how mobile marketing is more effective when all aspects are used together.

Linking offline marketing with mobile efforts is just one area of importance that she covers in the book. As she explains, when people are offline, they don’t have access to their computers. However, they do have access to the Web. As a result, marketers can incorporate elements such as QR codes to tie the two areas together, which will ultimately, reach consumers.

Are you keeping up with these mobile trends?

No one wants to get banned from Google, but unfortunately, it does happen. As Michael Stebbins of Market Motive explains, it is important to understand why some websites do, in fact, get banned from Google in order to prevent it from happening to you.

First of all, he suggests using Google’s Webmaster Tools to know for sure if you are banned. The dashboard offers very helpful information in this type of situation.

To make sure that your site doesn’t get banned, Stebbins tells WebProNews that you should think like a search engine. In other words, you have to realize that they are looking for genuine relevance and genuine popularity. If you try to fake either of these elements, Google will not want to partner with you.

Some people fake relevancy and popularity by linking to questionable websites, taking advantage of JavaScript redirects, and selling links. All these factors could result in Google banning your site.

To get re-included in Google’s index, Stebbins says you need to first decide if it is worth investing time in the re-inclusion process. There are some cases in which users commit so many “mortal sins” that is nearly impossible to rebuild a relevant and popular website.

At this point, he advises users to invest in another a site and apply a 301 redirect from the old site to the new one.  However, if you have not violated many of the guidelines, Stebbins says you could send a letter detailing what you did wrong and how you have fixed it. By doing this, it increases your chances of getting back into the index.

Are you taking preventative measures to make sure your site doesn’t get banned?

Posted by richardbaxterseo

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A simple example expanding a list of options for a user searching for flights:

Improving your navigation can have a positive impact on your site architecture. By making sure these fundamentals are covered, you can build your marketing efforts on a solid foundation knowing your website is crawlable and super-friendly to search engines. What are your favorite examples of great navigation?

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Posted by rolfbroer

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

Google has found an intelligent way to arrange the results for a search query. But an interesting question is – where we can find that intelligence? A lot of people have conducted research into the indexing process and even more have tested ranking factors on their weight, but we wondered how smart Googlebot itself is. To make a start, we took some statements and commonly used principles and tested how Googlebot handled them. Some results are questionable and should be tested on a few hundred domains to be sure, but it can give you some ideas.

Speed of The Crawler

The first one we tested was Matt Cutts on his following statement: “… the number of pages that we crawl is roughly proportional to your PageRank".

This brings us to one of the challenges large content sites are facing – the problem of getting all pages indexed. You can imagine if Amazon.com was a new website, it would take a while for Google to crawl all 48 million pages and if Matt Cutts’s statement is true, it would be impossible without any incoming links.

To test it, we took a domain with no history (never registered, no backlinks) and made a page with 250 links on it. Those links refer to pages that also have 250 links (and so on…). The links and URLs were numbered from 1 to 250, in the same order as they appeared in the source code. We submitted the URL via “addurl” and waited. Due to the fact that the domain has no incoming links, it has no or at least a negligible PageRank. If Matt Cutts’s statement is correct Googlebot would soon stop crawling.

As you can see in the graph, Googlebot started crawling the site with a crawl rate of approximately 2500 nodes per hour. After three hours, it slowed down to a crawl rate of approximately 25 pages per hour and maintained that rate for months. To verify this result we did the same test with two other domains. Both tests came up with nearly the same results. The only difference is the lower peak at the beginning of Googlebot’s visit.

Impact of Sitemaps

During the tests, the sitemap manifested itself as a very useful tool to influence the crawl rate. We added a sitemap with 50,000 uncrawled pages in it (indexation level 0). Googlebot placed the pages which were added to Google by sitemap on top of the crawl queue. This means that those pages got crawled before the F-levelled pages. But what’s really remarkable is the extreme increase in crawl rate. At first, the number of visits was stabilized at a rate of 20-30 pages per hour. As soon as the sitemap was uploaded through Webmaster Central,  the crawler accelerated to approximately 500 pages per hour. In just a few days it reached a peak of 2224 pages per hour. Where at first the crawler visited 26.59 pages per hour on average, it grew to an average of 1257.78 pages per hour which is an increase of no less then 4630.27%. The increase of crawl rate doesn’t  stop by the pages included in the sitemap. Also the other F- and 0-levelled pages take advantage of the increase in crawl rate.

It’s quite remarkable that Google suddenly uses more of it’s crawl capacity to crawl the website. At the point where we submitted the sitemap the crawl queue was filled with F-pages. Google probably attaches a lot of value to the submitted sitemap.

This brings us to Matt Cutts’s statement. After only 31 days Googlebot crawled about 375,000 pages of the website. If this is proportional to it’s PageRank (which is 0) this would mean that it will crawl 140,625,000,000 pages of a PageRank 1 website in just 31 days. Remember that PageRank is exponential. In other words, this would mean you never have to worry about your PageRank even if you own the largest website on the web. In other words don’t simply accept everything Matt says.

Amount of Links

Rand Fishkin says: “…you really can go above Google’s recommended of 100 links per page, with a PageRank 7.5 you can think about 250-300 links” ( http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-flat-site-architecture )

The 100 links per page advice has always been a hot topic especially for websites with a lot of pages. The reason the advice originally was given is the fact that Google used to index only 100 kilobytes per page. On a 100 kb page the amount of 100 links seemed reasonable. If a page was any longer, there was a chance that the page would be so long that Google would truncate the page and wouldn’t index the entire page. These days, Google will index more than 1.5MB and user experience is the main reason for Google to keep the  “100 links” recommendation in their guidelines.

As was described in the previous paragraph, Google does crawl 250 links, even on sites with no incoming links. But is there a limit? We tried the same set-up as the websites described with 250 links on it but instead we used 5,000 links per page. When Googlebot visited that website something  remarkable happened. Googlebot requested the following pages:

• http://example.com/1/
• http://example.com/10/
• http://example.com/100/
• http://example.com/1000/

On every level Google visits, we see the same page requests. It seems like Googlebot doesn’t know how to handle such a large amount of links and tries to solve it as a computer.

Semantic Intelligence

One of the SEO myths used on almost every optimised website are the links placed in heading tags. Recently it was mentioned again as one of the factors of the “Reasonable Surfer patent”. If Google respects semantics, it definitely attaches more value to those “heading” links. We had our doubts and put it to the test. We took a page with 250 links on it and marked some with heading tags. This was done a few levels deep. After a few weeks of waiting nothing pointed in the direction that Googlebot preferred the “heading” links. This doesn’t mean Googlebot doesn’t use semantics in it’s algorithm, it just doesn’t use headings to give links more weight than others.

Crawling JavaScript

Google says it keeps getting better in recognizing and executing JavaScript. Although JavaScript is not a good technique to use if you want to be sure that Google does follow your links, it’s used quite a lot to reach the opposite goal. When used for PageRank sculpting the purpose of using JavaScript links is to make those links only visible for users. If you use this technique for this purpose it’s good to keep yourself updated on what Google can and can’t recognize and execute. To test Googlebot on it’s JavaScript capabilities we took the JavaScript codes as described in “The professional’s guide to PageRank optimization” and put them to the test.  

The only code Googlebot executed and followed during our test was the link in a simple “document.write” line. This doesn’t exclude the possibility that Googlebot is capable of recognizing and executing the more advanced script. It is possible that Google needs an extra trigger (like incoming links) to put more effort into the JavaScript crawling.

Crawling Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a typical element on a webpage specially created for users. Sometimes they are used to support the site structure as well. Last month we encountered some problems where the Googlebot was not able to crawl it’s way up, so we did some tests.

We made a page a few levels deep with some content and links to higher levels on it ( http://example.com/lvl1/lvl2/lvl3/ ). We gave the page some incoming links and waited for Googlebot. Although the deep page itself was visited 3 times by the crawler, the higher pages didn’t get a visit.

To verify this result, we did the same test on an other domain. This time the test page was a few levels deeper in the site structure (http://example.com/lvl1/lvl2/lvl3/lvl4/lvl5/). This time Googlebot did follow some links which referred to pages higher on the site structure. Despite the fact that Googlebot does follow the links, it doesn’t seem to be a good method to support a site structure. After a few weeks Google still didn’t crawl all the higher pages. It looks like Googlebot rather crawls deeper into the site structure then higher pages.

Takeaways

In short, the lesson learned is that one can influence the crawl rate with a sitemap. This doesn’t mean that you should always upload a sitemap for your websites. You only want to increase the crawl rate if the bulk of your crawled pages get indexed. It takes longer for a crawler to return to an “F”-levelled page than to return to an indexed page. So if most of your pages get crawled, but dropped from the index you might want to consider getting more incoming links before using a sitemap. Best thing to do is to monitor for every page when Googlebot last visited it. With this method you can always identify problems in your site structure.

The amount of links isn’t limited to 250 links (even if you have no incoming links) although 5000 seems too much. We haven’t found the exact limit yet, but if we do, we will give you an update.

Links in heading tags for crawl purpose seems to be a waste of time. Though you can use them for usability purposes, because you’re used to it or because WordPress does it anyway and maybe if you’re lucky it’s still a ranking factor.

Another conclusion we can make is that the Googlebot isn’t very good in crawling breadcrumbs. So don’t use them for site structure purposes. Google just doesn’t crawl up as good as it crawls down. In contrast to breadcrumbs, you can use JavaScript for site sculpting purposes. Googlebot isn’t top of the bill if we’re talking about recognizing and executing JavaScript links. Remember to keep yourself updated on this subject, but for now you definitely can use some “advanced” JavaScript to do sculpting.

A last result that came up while performing research on the crawl process was the influence of the URL length. A short URL gets crawled earlier than long URL’s, therefore always consider the need for indexation and the need to be crawled if you choose your URL.

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Although many online marketers spend time focusing on keywords, Chitika’s CEO Venkat Kolluri says that search behavior research could actually do more to improve online marketing efforts than keywords could do. He believes so strongly in the research that he calls it “a much more powerful targeting opportunity.”

As he explains to WebProNews, there are two types of searchers: the average searcher and the technologically savvy searcher. Since the technologically savvy searchers are harder to sell to, Kolluri says marketers have to educate and convince them on the sale.

Average users, on the other hand, are easier to reach since their needs are more obvious. Kolluri says they practically have a label written across their forehead stating what they want. He goes on to say that marketers can find these needs easily by looking at the strength of their query.

In addition, marketers should notice if the searchers use Google or Bing as well as Firefox or Internet Explorer. According to Kolluri, the more technologically savvy searchers use Google and Firefox while the more consumer-oriented searchers use Bing and Internet Explorer.

Since finding the demographics on searchers is difficult, Kolluri introduces a new idea that helps understand searchers. He suggests looking at technographics. This information provides insight into consumer preferences and allows marketers to customize for the different types of visitors they have. If marketers apply this research, Kolluri says they will become smarter.

Posted by Danny Dover

 This week’s Whiteboard Friday features the return of Rand (woo hoo!) and his self declared biggest SEO mistakes. We screw up a lot here at SEOmoz (hell, they hired me), so we feel it is only appropriate to take this opportunity to share what we have learned in an effort to prevent you from making similar mistakes. SEO is complicated. The best we can do is practice, work hard and compare notes.

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1. Reciprocal Links + Robots.txt NoFollow

Back before the formal SEOmoz days, Rand used to dabble a bit in some grayer areas of SEO. The first mistake he mentions is a tactic involving offering reciprocal links but blocking the outbound links via robots.txt/meta robots so that he could get all of the link value. This tactic didn’t really work and he ended up having to do a lot more work to get in the good graces of the webmasters he had fooled. Head smack!

2. Buying Links for Clients

This tactic also took place before formal SEOmoz days. At the time, Rand spent client budgets on paid links. This is a bad idea because the value of the links can’t be determined (was Google even counting them?). He later found out through Google employees that the links were not being counted and that they may actually be hurting the client’s site ability to rank. Oops!

3. Recommending People Use H1 Tags with Keywords

This mistake is a little bit more subtle. For years, SEOmoz recommended including keywords in the H1 of pages. After we started doing formal machine learning correlation tests we found out that this tactic didn’t actually help very much at all (including the keywords in normal text in bigger fonts worked essentially the same). This was a shame because it meant we wasted time and energy convincing our clients to update their H1s.

4. Recommending People Not To Use XML Sitemaps

When XML Sitemaps first debuted, Rand and SEOmoz recommended not using this. While the idea was sound in theory (having a XML Sitemap can make it difficult to spot information architecture problems) the observation ended up being outweighed by the impact we saw with the increased indexation rates of sites that employed this tool.

5. Incorrectly Redirecting Linkscape to Open Site Explorer

Recently we decided to 301 redirect all of the old Linkscape reports to our newer, better converting, Open Site Explorer reports in a 1-1 relationship. This was in theory a good idea but unfortunately including various tracking components on the redirect URLs resulted in us losing a significant amount of traffic. We later fixed this with rel=canonical but a lot of the damage was already done. Ouch!

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Do you have any lessons you have learned after making some noteworthy mistakes? If so, we would love to hear what you learned in the comments below.

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Unfortunately, most companies do not realize how much content can be optimized as news. According to Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group, press releases, blogs, social media profiles, tweets, Facebook posts, and more can all be included in news results.

To do this, she suggests that marketers, first of all, optimize press releases for news search. She also recommends using tools such as PitchEngine. This tool provides an additional place for marketers to post press releases. Buyer says this effective tool practically guarantees that users will show up on the first page of Google’s search results. Although it does not always stay in the top spot, it does provide instant gratification.

She also points out the importance of interacting with media, especially through Twitter. Specifically, she tells WebProNews that “#journchat” is a great way to do this. The chat takes place weekly and brings journalists, bloggers, and professionals together.

Additionally, Buyer offers advice in regards to promoting content. She says one of the keys to successful promotion is avoiding spammy and pitchy messages. Although it’s easy to take the headline and tweet it out, it is not the most effective approach. Instead, Buyer advocates more creative methods such as using quotes, statistics, questions, or other interesting nuggets of information that will draw traffic back to the release.

Are you utilizing these opportunities to show up in news results?

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