People frequently discuss the differences between traditional marketing and social media marketing. However, Rebecca Kelley, the Director of Social Media at 10e20, does not think there are too many distinguishing factors. Instead, she believes that social media marketing is a natural extension to the traditional form of marketing.

For example, she compares pulling an ad out of a magazine to setting up tabs on a Facebook fan page. Although one encounter is offline and the other is online, the same action is present in both situations.

According to Kelley, the primary distinction between traditional marketing and social marketing is that in social, there is a greater emphasis on social interaction and building relationships. Traditional marketing is accustomed to a one-way communication model and social marketing requires a two-way channel.

Many businesses embraced social marketing early on to simply mimic other businesses. Now, some businesses are hesitant to join after witnessing mistakes others have made by sharing too much information. While Kelley does not think a silencing approach is the answer, she does believe businesses should implement policies for social usage. A balanced approach is the best solution.

Ultimately, marketers need to realize how to make a connection with their audience and make decisions according to what is appropriate for their brand.

One of the hottest topics at industry events of late has been the great divide between the C-suite and digital marketers. At the recent SES San Jose conference, OgilvyOne CEO Brian Fetherstonhaugh reportedly gave the startling statistic that the average CEO spends 1.8 percent of their time on search.

As a result of that finding, Rebecca Lieb of Econsultancy says search marketers have to explain and, essentially, up-sell what search marketing is and prove that it has ROI. She calls the situation “ironic” since SEM is very measurable and actionable.

So, how can this barrier be broken down? Lieb believes there has to be a complete generational shift in management. Marketers need to continue to show the value digital marketing can bring with search specifically, and how it can enhance other media channels instead of replacing it.

There are some companies that are embracing digital marketing, but the majority of traditional marketers are still not accepting it. As technology advances, we can only hope that the C-suite comes on board and sees the value in digital marketing before they fall too far behind.

Posted by Dr. Pete

We bloggers talk a lot about finding our voice, that mystical quality that is uniquely us and yet somehow resonates with a wider audience. What happens, though, when your blog gets written by a group of authors? How does a company or community blog find its voice and not just devolve into a schizophrenic mess?

I’d like to tell you that there’s some secret recipe, but honestly, I think that the most successful companies recognize that they can’t completely control their creation – they have to let it grow and evolve naturally. Intuitively, they somehow recognize the following three realities of collective blogging:

1. Voices Naturally Emerge

Some people, whether they’re just natural writers, strong personalities, or great at what they do, naturally stand out in a crowd. This makes some companies nervous, and they automatically try to rein in those voices, restricting their authors to rigid rules and standards. Too often they end up destroying whatever quality made those writers worth reading in the first place, exactly the quality that would help them build an audience and be successful. Good companies recognize that strong voices naturally emerge, and they play to that strength.

2. Voices Create A Chorus

Even as strong voices naturally emerge, the best company blogs are still group efforts. Without forcing a structure on them, order somehow appears out of chaos. Like any group, a successful company blog finds a common language and culture, develops in-jokes and popular themes, and starts to feel like a conversation. Companies that try the hardest to force this structure are usually the ones who end up destroying it.

3. Voices Eventually Change

Finally, successful companies recognize that voices change – people grow, take on new roles, and eventually move on. We’ve seen it here at SEOmoz, most recently with Rebecca leaving, but it’s happened before that and will inevitably happen again. When it does, that voice is always missed, both by the readers and the collective – the chorus falters a bit, but sooner or later, a new song picks up where the old one left off. It doesn’t mean that the efforts of past authors are diminished or unappreciated, simply that the collective is strong enough to find its voice again.

Adding My Voice to The Mix

Now that I’ve got you reading, I can admit that this post is really my way of making an announcement while trying to not make it all about me. I’m going to be taking on a new role here at SEOmoz, working with the staff to help support the community and some of the PRO functions (such as Q&A). Consider me your unofficial community organizer.

A Brief Re-introduction

Although some of you know me from the community and YOUmoz, Rand suggested that a brief re-introduction might be in order. It all started in the little town of Fenton, Illinois – Population: 137. Ok, maybe I can skip ahead a few years. When I was 9, I bought my first computer, a TRS-80 Color Computer (if you’re wondering, it was 1979). I immediately learned that coding was in my blood. Back then, I was so hardcore that if I made a mistake while typing in a program, I wiped out all my code and started over. Also, I didn’t know that you could edit just one line. Give me a break; I was 9. In case you were wondering, the 9-or-so year-old me is in that picture above – 3 pints of invisible fairy dust to the first person who can guess which one is me.

I started publishing code at 15 and ultimately decided to major in Computer Science. Due to a great intro class I had in high school, I decided to double-major, and went on to get my B.S. in Computer Science and Psychology. When I graduated in 1992, the internet hadn’t really taken hold and my itch to learn more about the human mind had just barely been scratched, so I decided to do my doctorate in Cognitive Psychology.

Long story short, the internet virtually exploded while I was in grad. school to become a household phenomenon, so I finished my Ph.D. and went to work for a startup in 1997. We went through the usual identity crises, from ISP to ASP to niche developers for the tradeshow industry, and I found myself going from being one developer in an abandoned warehouse to Executive VP of a $2M company and staff of 16.

In 2005, I finally decided that it was time to take the next step, and so I started my own company, User Effect, focusing on website usability. I wanted to get back in the trenches with clients and finally put everything I had learned to use. At the end of 2006, a client convinced me to attend my first SEO conference (SES Chicago). I had dabbled in SEO since the late 90s, but was always turned off by the snake-oil side of it, especially in the early days. What I learned at that first conference really opened my eyes. I started to see how search was an essential part of the user experience – you can’t tell where people are going or help them get there if you don’t understand where they’ve been.

I had the good fortune to see a certain Rand Fishkin speak at that show, and I learned about a community and blog called SEOmoz. In the 3 years since, the Moz community has become not only one of my favorite learning platforms, but a home away from home, and the launching point for dozens of friendships. I’ve gotten a lot out of this community, and now I hope to be able to give just a little bit back.

Letting My Voice Develop

As I start to contribute more directly to the site and become part of the collective voice, I’ll always try to remember that the community is much larger than myself. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop being me. As a long-time community member, I hope to use my new role to not only advocate for you the reader, but to answer the many lingering questions we all have about the inner workings of the Moz and its employees. Among these burning questions:

• What is Rand’s fascination with yellow shoes and what kind of a name is Fish-kin, anyway? Is he merely fond of aquatic life, or is he descended from an ancient race of merfolk who hold the secrets to the Lost City of Atlantis?
   
• What does Scott do all day, other than pick out music for Whiteboard Friday? Is that a real job?
   
• Who is the real Danny Dover, and where did he get his luxurious moustache? Expect some of these answers in my 7-part miniseries: “The Legend of Stachemaster D”.
   
• Is Jennifer Lopez THAT Jennifer Lopez? She says “no”, but isn’t that what the real J-Lo would say if she were hiding from the paparazzi by working at an SEO firm? Think about it.
   
• Who are Will, Tom, and Duncan, and what exactly have they been Distilling? Are they part of a second British invasion?

Of course, I also hope to learn enough about the rest of the Moz staff to mock them as thoroughly. In all seriousness, though, I’m looking forward to this new opportunity and hope to be able to provide some real value. If anyone has questions or concerns about the community (or about me), please don’t hesitate to contact me, and thanks again for being part of one of my favorite spots on the internet.

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Posted by great scott!

This week on Whiteboard Friday we’re looking at visualization. Not the Tony Robbins, Zig Ziggler, positive thinking kind, but rather how to make your web content attractive to users.

People on the web consume tons of information everyday, so their time is limited. A surefire way to turn people off is with a long page of text with nothing to break it up. Even if the content is stellar, some visitors are likely to assume it will take too long to get through, or it will be too dry for them to enjoy.  The solution? Add some visuals. Charts, graphs, related pictures, etc. Break up your content and provide clues to what’s covered in the article. This makes it easy for visitors to get a quick overview as well as a deeper understanding while they’re reading.

While USA Today gets a lot of flack for being all info-graphics, all the time, there’s a reason it’s the number one newspaper in the US: it’s easy to digest for people who need some news but don’t have time to read the whole paper.  Visual cues can help create expectations and inform passive readers, which will make them more likely to engage with your content. And remember: engaged readers link 1,266%* more often than non-engaged readers. Watch the video and learn how you can add some more pizazz to your content.

As Rand mentions at the end, our gone but not forgotten colleague, Rebecca Kelley, is now working with the crew over at 10e20 (some of my favorite people in search). If you’ve been missing her, you can check her out in all of her majestic bloginess on the 10e20 Blog.

*This statistic is completely made-up

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Posted by rebecca

The beginning of this month (May 2nd, to be exact) marked my 3 year anniversary as a blogger. My first post on SEOmoz was a paragraph long and consisted of asking our readers if they know of any Spanish-language SEO blogs. It attracted 18 comments. Huzzah! Since then, I’ve published 241 more posts, with this one being #243. I thought I’d reflect back on my three years of blogging and share the good, the bad, the downright ugly, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Phase I: Asking Questions
I wrote 4 posts in May of 2006, and each of them centered on a question posited to the community:

• "Know of any Spanish SEO blogs?"
• "Is there such a thing as too much website usability?"
• "What do you think of the (then-new) ‘I’m a Mac/I’m a PC’ commercials?
• "Is cyberspace a Googlocracy?" 

At this point in my long and storied career at SEOmoz, I had been occupying a desk within the company for 4 short months (3 of which were as an intern), so I still had a lot to learn about SEO, Internet marketing, and, actually, about the Internet in general. I didn’t feel confident enough to blog about something as an "expert" or provide my input/opinion on a topic, so I resorted to asking open-ended questions in order to get feedback from our blog audience and establish a connection with them.

Lesson Learned:
The biggest lesson I learned with my first few posts was that you don’t have to be the expert when you blog, especially when you’ve got a good chunk of readers. It’s important to ask for feedback and reach out to your community for their input. I think they respect you more when you admit that you have limits and appreciate them for their opinions and level of expertise.

Phase II: Editorializing Existing Articles
My blogging evolved into me finding an article or blog post and talking about it (and, of course, ending with a question for our readers). With these types of posts I was able to inject a bit of personal interpretation and my input into them. I still wasn’t touting my knowledge level or expertise, but providing opinions about other people’s blog posts allowed me to step forward a bit and let my voice be heard.

Lesson Learned:
If you can’t think of anything to blog about or still aren’t confident in your "expert" abilities, there’s always an article or some news that you can highlight and add a personal spin to.

Phase III: Establishing a Voice
Once I got a handful of posts under my belt, I started to feel more comfortable sitting at a keyboard, Doogie Howser-style, and I was able to add my personality and voice more freely to my blog posts. I’ve always had a knack for writing, so I really enjoyed (and still do) injecting a little bit of myself into the posts I authored. I think that if someone were to remove the authors from a bunch of different posts and ask "Which one did Rebecca write?", you’d be able to identify mine pretty easily.

Lesson Learned:
At this point, even though I was still learning and considered myself to be a beginner SEO, I was comfortable enough with our readers and my coworkers that I could start being myself and letting my posts reflect who I was as a person. I think that’s one of the most important lessons learned when it comes to blogging. The thing that separates the good bloggers from the bad is their voice. What makes you read one blog over another? Sure, a lot of factors come into play, such as the frequency of updates, the quality of information, the level of expertise, etc. But for me, the thing that makes one blogger stand out amongst the throngs of everyone else is his ability to inject his personality into what he’s writing. I’m still no SEO expert, and I don’t pretend to be. Nonetheless, people still enjoy what I’ve got to say because I say it differently than anyone else, and that uniqueness I bring to the table is what defines me and makes me interesting.

Now that I’m at Phase III (profit!!!), I thought I’d share some other blogging odds and ends that I noticed after perusing through old posts.

Recurring Blogging Traits

1. Using punny titles that usually work in a movie, music or pop culture reference

• I Used to Care, But Things Have(n’t) Changed
• Sometimes Sites Don’t Look Like They Should…They Make It…Hurt So Good
• Marketing Sherpa States That SEM Clients Aren’t Multiplying Like Wet Gremlins
• London (and Worthing) Calling
• An American in London
• Overheard in (SES) New York
• Wordze to Yo Mutha

Lesson Learned:
Constructing a fun and eye-catching title is a good way to attract attention to your posts. Since I’m a huge dork, I like working in some sort of pop culture reference–it’s a good way to identify fellow nerds who march to the beat of the same drum as I do.

2. Feigning abuse at the hands of Rand

• "…I thought I’d take my boss’s ‘Post blogs while I’m gone or you’re fired!’ threat seriously and attempt to bring something to the blog table."
• "Rand has chained me to my desk and ordered me to summarize the next set of videos released by Matt Cutts."
• "You don’t know what Rand Fishkin is really like. He made it explicitly clear that if I don’t keep summarizing your videos, I won’t live past my birthday."
• "Rand took a trip to both Houndstown and Badgersville to constantly bug me to finish this damn thing…"
• "In order to please the masses, Rand once again chained me to my desk and ordered me to do a recap of SES London in an amusing comic book fashion."
• "My ‘Don’t Fire Me Rand’ Recap of SES New York"
• "…okay, sometimes when I ask him non-work stuff (‘Hey, how was your weekend buddy?’) he barks "Go write a blog entry!" at me…"

Lesson Learned:
Sometimes it’s good to take a lighthearted, joking tone: it makes the post more fun to read, and if you can find a way to identify with the audience (by, say, pretending the leader of the company you blog for is a sadist), they’ll enjoy your blogging even more.

3. Writing completely useless blog posts that people somehow nonetheless seem to like

• Ten Ways to Take a Break from Tedious SEO Work
• Ten Sad Signs Your Writing is Web-Influenced
• British Vocabulary 101
• 10 Different Types of Clients
• The Best Spam Submission Ever

Lesson Learned:
A little humor goes a long way. Sure, the posts are off-topic and have little to no actual marketing tips, but it’s nice to take a break from the usual blogging schedule and present something fun for your readers. Plus, they seem to like it–the latter two posts I listed are among the most popular ever on SEOmoz, and they’re certainly two of the most popular posts I’ve authored.

4. Using personal interests as an analogy or direct example (with food, movies and training/exercise being my most frequent go-to subjects)

• The Internet = The Ultimate Focus Group
• Why Good Content is Like a Pixar Film
• Punctured Tires and Lessons Learned About Paid Links
• Don’t Create False Expectations, Especially When It Comes to Baked Potatoes
• Movie Websites: A Missed Opportunity Or a Case of the "I Don’t Care"s?
• Content and Marketing Lessons Learned from the Dark Knight
• Sneaky Spam in Local Search

Lesson Learned:
I like using analogies and examples that I know/care about. Analogies and examples strengthen your point and make your post more understandable and relatable for your readers. If you use examples that have a close personal tie to you, you’re more likely to be excited about blogging. Plus, your readers will get to know you and will establish a personal bond, which will bring them back to your blog again and again.

Random Stats:

Most popular blogging categories:

• Roundups (53ish): you jerkwads sure do love your roundups!
• Events and Conferences (around 42): I’ve blogged about SES Latino, SES San Jose, SES Chicago, SES London, SEMpdx’s Searchfest, SES New York, SMX Advanced, SES Toronto, SES Travel, Shop.org events, SMX Social Media, SMX West, the eCommerce Summit, and some local Seattle meetups.
• Miscellaneous (23): this category houses most of my off-topic/silly/useless posts.
• SEOmoz news (15): we’re a growing company, so it’s only fitting that I announce the occasional company-related news to the masses.
• Google (16): in comparison, I’ve blogged about Microsoft and Yahoo! two times each. Cue the sad trombone.
• Social Media (13): one of my favorite topics.
• Search Community (12): there’s always something interesting to blog about with regards to our industry’s community.
• Web Design/Usability (11): I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess I’m more interested in usability than I thought.

Number of posts about Matt Cutts: 10, 7 of which are video transcription posts, and all of which make fun of him in some capacity.

Number of posts I published but didn’t write: 6 (they were written by our six hiring candidates)

Posts with the most thumbs (since the thumbs system has been implemented):

• The Best Spam Submission Ever (it’s also the 4th most popular post ever on SEOmoz), currently sitting at 96 up, 4 down
• Please Stop Spamming Me for Votes (81 up, 2 down)
• 10 Different Types of Clients (67 up, 0 down)
• Apparently I Work for Google (49 up, 0 down)
• Are You Forcing Your Users to Superfluously Click (41 up, 0 down)

Favorite Posts:

• Apparently I Work for Google. Oftentimes, the best posts I write are the ones that just come to me and that I don’t have to spend any time researching. I wrote this one up one day while I was bored visiting my family in Michigan, and it really pleased me to see how well received (and relatable) it was by our readers.
• How NOT to Request a Link Via Email, Please Stop Spamming Me for Votes, Just When You Think Search Misconceptions Can’t Get Any Worse, Your Users Aren’t Intuitive, Which Is Why Your Forms Need to Be, and Customer Service and Reputation Management the Twitter Way: A Case Study. Sometimes a post falls directly into your lap based on a situation you encounter. The above posts were derived from conversations, a random email, a sign up process, and a customer service mishap. I was able to turn each experience into a lesson that I could share with the community.
• Content and Marketing Lessons Learned from the Dark Knight, 10 Different Types of Clients and Unusual Search Terms from the Month of November. Unlike the previous posts, these three are examples of posts I had ideas for and spent a lot of time on. There’s always a fear and some worry that you’ll pour all this effort into a post (or project) and that it will blow up in your face or fall flat, and I’m always relieved and happy to have the opposite happen. It’s nice seeing your hard work get well received and rewarded.
• Are You Forcing Your Users to Superfluously Click, How Newsworthy Are Your Newsletters, Plan for the Holidays Nice and Early By Analyzing Search Trends, and How a Good Title and Description Can Make or Break Your Social Media Submission. These are the ones I had a lot of fun putting together because I really enjoyed finding and analyzing various examples.

Lessons Learned:

• Try to find value in everyday situations. Think of how you can shape an experience you’ve had into something interesting and useful for your audience.
• Not every post has to be planned out ahead of time–sometimes a great idea can just come to you or you can be inspired by a random occurrence.
• If you put a lot of time and effort into a post and worry it’ll never pay off, don’t worry, oftentimes it will and you’re just being paranoid.
• Use examples in your posts (websites, screenshots, movies, whatever)–they really help!

Least Favorite Posts:

• The lazy posts (What Google Needs to Do with YouTube to Make Me Happy, Wikipedia vs. Britannica in a No-Holds-Barred Debate, Want to Make Up Stupid Words? Then Create a Social Media Site!). I think these posts had good potential, but I was lazy and essentially used them as a means to bitch about something without having much of a valid point to support my gripes.
• The clueless posts (Wikipedia: Now Telling You What’s What While You’re IM’ing, Google Adwords is Giving Me a Headache, Digg Has Shout-Blocked Me). I fired off these posts without doing adequate research and subsequently got my ass handed to me in the comments by people who were quick to point out that either what I was doing wrong or that the feature had been around for quite some time.
• The lame post (How to Get Banned from Digg). Yeah, this post sucks. (Hey, sometimes I can be painfully unfunny too!)

Lessons Learned:

• There’s a fine line between bitching with a point and just plain bitching. You don’t want to come across as a whiner.
• Also, if you’re blogging about a topic, you should do a bit of research beforehand just so you don’t make a fool out of yourself (unless that’s your intent).
• Oh, and don’t try too hard to be witty, clever, smart, etc. It often falls flat and is embarrassingly obvious to your readers. Just be yourself!

Polarizing Posts:

• All the Female Bloggers Say Heyyyy!…Hello? Ladies? This post inadvertantly turned into a bit of a gender war. Kim Krause Berg had blogged about the lack of recognition for female tech bloggers, and I said that it’s because there aren’t that many so there are very few to recognize. This post was pretty tame in terms of how much ire it raised, but nonetheless it was my first foray into taking a stance on a topic that had dissenting viewpoints. 
• Hey, I’m Blogging! Pay Attention to Me! This post has the dubious distinction of attracting my first ever thumb down. Apparently some of our readers/bloggers didn’t care to hear me call them attention whores. Oh well. I still think that bloggers (including me) are attention whores. Deal with it. ;P 
• A-List vs. Blue Collar Blogging. This is one of my favorite posts in that it received 17 thumbs up and 13 thumbs down for a net gain of 4. That’s pretty impressive. I still stand by my core message, which is that "A-List" bloggers do exist, and that not every blogger can become one in 90 days. I do feel a bit dumb for getting baited by Jason Calacanis, but then again, he was pretty good at getting attention (be it good or bad) back in the day (he seems to have quieted down more recently–maybe he’s busy trying to de-suck Mahalo).  
• Ron Paul is the Snakes on a Plane of 2008. Never fails–you talk about politics and end up stirring the pot, especially when you compare a popular politician to a B-grade movie about deadly snakes aboard a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles.
• Generation Google a General Disappointment. This one’s a bit tricky. While I still maintain that the panel could have been much better than it was, looking back I realize that I was too harsh to Danny Sullivan, Rand and his brother, Evan. Belated apologies–I could have gotten my point across without pouring on quite as much Haterade as I did, so I’m sorry. (Hey, better late than never, right?)
• No, Unfortunately Digg Doesn’t Know Who You Are. I think this post got a lot of backlash partially because of the harshness of the original title and because some of the examples I highlighted were taken from actual user accounts, so they felt embarrassed to get called out. Again, I probably could have made my point without being quite so harsh, which is definitely an important takeaway. Nonetheless, I still like my post and stand behind it as an important thing to remember when doing social media marketing.

Lessons Learned:

• Controversy attracts eyeballs, but you have to be prepared to take the good with the bad. If you can dish it out but your skin is too thin to take what gets bounced back at you, you probably shouldn’t take such a harsh stance on things. (Thankfully, for the most part I’ve got a pretty thick skin. That’s what you get when you grow up with two teasing older brothers.)
• Don’t be afraid to stick up for yourself or defend your stance, but also know when to admit you’re wrong. After looking back at some of these posts, I was able to identify moments where I crossed the line and should have checked myself before I riggity wrecked myself.
• This has more to do with a business blog, but try to stay respectful even when disagreeing with someone. I’ve sloooooooowly learned that over the past few years, and now I’m a bit more tempered than a couple years ago. I don’t get as worked up or dragged into ridiculous wars between bloggers/marketers, and as a result it’s made me a better employee, blogger and human being.

Well, that about wraps up my retrospective on my three years of blogging here at SEOmoz. Blogging for this company has pretty much shaped my career and my image into what it is today, and it’s opened countless doors for me professionally. I can definitively say for a fact that blogging can be an invaluable asset if you know how to approach it. I’ve learned a ton about blogging and about myself in the past few years, and I hope the lessons I’ve shared can be of some benefit to you too. In the meantime, here’s to many more years of blogging about movies, marketing, and the wrath of Rand.

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Posted by rebecca

The weather’s getting nicer, the days are getting longer and Rand’s barely in the office. You know what that means: it’s conference season! Since there are so many conferences right around the corner, I thought I’d list some upcoming events in case you’re thinking of attending a show but aren’t sure which one to book.

SMX London in London, UK: May 18-19, 2009

SMX London is next week in jolly ol’. I won’t go into too many details since Rand covered 10 reasons you must attend SMX London, but I will say that PRO members receive a 10% discount on event registration. Also, you should go because in London you can eat pasties and drink bitters, and that alone should be worth the traveling costs.

IMC Stockholm in Stockholm, Sweden: May 26-28, 2009

I’m speaking at IMC Stockholm at the end of the month. Day 1 of the conference is dedicated to affiliate marketing, while Day 2 is the main conference day and Day 3 is full of various workshops (Google Adwords, social media, conversion optimization, customer experience management, and more). I’ll be speaking on a panel about Cost Effective Online Marketing, and there are a lot of other interesting session topics, such as the Top 12 SEO Tips for 2009, How to Use the Six Conversion Rate Factors to Lift Your ROI, Making Social Media Profitable, and Recession-Proof Online Strategies. I’m really looking forward to attending and speaking at IMC Stockholm–the agenda seems very practical, there will be a lot of  new people to meet, and, of course, I get to explore Stockholm for a week. If you’re interested in attending, you can receive a 20% discount off the registration cost by using the code imc-speaker. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

SMX Advanced in Seattle, Washington: June 2-3, 2009

SMX is hosting their third advanced conference in Seattle, and it’s right in SEOmoz’s backyard. Having attended both previous Advanced conferences, I can say that the event gets better each year, and I’m sure that this year there will be a lot of great, valuable information for intermediate to advanced SEOs. The Give It Up session alone should be worth the cost of admission. Also, if you attend you’ll get to meet several members of the SEOmoz team as we’ll be showcasing our suite of PRO tools at our Expo Hall booth. And you may run into us at various networking functions in the evening. PRO members receive 10% off registration costs, so register today and we’ll see you in a few weeks!

SMX Madrid in Spain: June 3-4, 2009

¿Hablas español? ¡No problema! SMX Madrid is happening right after Advanced in lovely Madrid, Spain. The conference is in Spanish and offers both basic and advanced tracks. Yo estoy triste que no puedo asistir la conferencia, pero ojalá que algún día pueda visitar a España y conocer algunos vendedores españoles.

SES Toronto in Toronto, Ontario: June 8-10, 2009

For our neighbors to the north, SES Toronto is next month. Organized by smartypants SEM expert Andrew Goodman, the conference is broken into 3 fun tracks: Nuts & Bolts, Corporateville and the Geek Track. I spoke at SES Toronto two years ago about link bait and viral marketing, and I really enjoyed the sessions and ran into a lot of great marketers. Looking at the agenda, it seems that this year there are a lot of new approaches to traditional topics (which is nice–I hate it when a conference series rehashes the exact same agenda in every city).

Affiliate Convention in Denver, Colorado: June 17-20, 2009

Both Gillian and our very own Jenny from the block will be speaking at the Denver Affiliate Convention next month. Designed "specifically to meet the needs of affiliate marketers," this conference is free for all working affiliates (how nice!). It focuses on how to run and improve affiliate marketing campaigns. Jen will be covering Alternative Search Engines and Marketing Venues for Affiliates, while Gillian is talking about Industry Trends for Travel in the Current Economic Market. If you’re affiliate and plan on attending, be sure to stop and say hello to the SEOmoz crew!

I’ll post a separate entry soon about upcoming summer conferences. In the meantime, feel free to share any other spring events that are coming up, and let me know if you’re planning on attending any of the aforementioned conferences–we’d love to hear your input on the shows!

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Posted by rebecca

At the beginning of every month I’ll be highlighting the best content from the previous month. I’ll still be doing the weekly roundups (I owe you guys a big one tomorrow), but here’s a monthly recap of the best blogs, YOUmoz entries, tools and more.

Best Blog Posts in April 2009

1. Fear and Forgiveness. Rand talks about feelings (whoa whoa whoa, feelings) and forgiving people who have rubbed him the wrong way in the past. It’s a post we can all relate to and a nice reminder that maybe we shouldn’t hold onto grudges as tightly as we do. 
2. How Google’s Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time. Rand shares his opinion on how some of the key factors in Google’s ranking algorithm have changed over the past several years.
3. Whiteboard Friday: Domain Trust and Authority. Bookending Rand’s Google rankings algo changes post is this WBF video about various issues that can affect your domain’s trust metrics and its ability to rank well. 
4. How to Rank Well in Google Products Search & a Big List of Places to Get Reviews. Tom Critchlow represents Team Distilled with pride as he shares some great tips on how to optimize for Google Base and provides potential ranking factors.
5. 21 Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post. It’s just not a Best Of list without, well, a list. Rand shares 21 ways to attract attention to your blog posts.

Best YOUmoz Posts in April 2009:

1. SEO Since 1999. James Svoboda goes all VH1 "I Love the Internet" on us and gives a comprehensive history of how search engines, directories, PPC, affiliate program, social media marketing, and more have changed in the last 10 years. 
2. Darren Slatten Sucks – Don’t Ever Hire Him. Darren takes an interesting approach to reputation management and says that he doesn’t need it; rather, he lets his work speak for itself.
3. How a Site Redesign Increased Traffic By 515%. Whitespark shares the results of a major site redesign with us and includes some really compelling before and after web stats.

Tool Updates and Launches in April 2009:

• We gave the Crawl Test tool a bit of a face lift and improved its functionality. It’s also faster and more scalable, so hooray for that! (If you notice anything buggy with it, please contact sitesupport@seomoz.org.)
• Both Linkscape and Blogscape had updates in our continuous effort to provide you monkeys with accurate, fast and useful tools. Linkscape’s index is now the biggest ever, with 44 billion URLs and 475 billion links. We also updated our list of the 500 most important domains on the Internet. 
• We introduced our new juicy link finder, the Link Acquisition Assistant, which is currently beta-ing it up in Labs. This tool returns 121 link acquisition queries based on information you provide about your website, brand and competition.
• Oh, and of course, we launched Webfluence at the beginning of the month.

Monthly YOUmoz Contest Winner

Last month I introduced a new feature, our monthly YOUmoz blog theme contest. Each month I’ll announce a blog theme and our members can choose to write a YOUmoz post about that theme. At the end of the month I’ll pick a winning blog post, and the author will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift card.

April’s theme was reputation monitoring and management. We only received two entries (sniffle):

• Darren Slatten Sucks – Don’t Ever Hire Him
• My Own Personal Approach to Online Reputation Management

Kudos to DanaDV for giving it a fightin’ chance, but I’m going to have to award the prize to Darren Slatten for writing an entertaining, thought-provoking post that takes a different approach to online reputation management. Darren, you goober, you are our very first YOUmoz contest winner. Congratulations!

YOUmoz Theme for May 2009

This month we’ve added a nifty little banner to the YOUmoz home page that displays the current month’s theme. Now you have no excuse–I want to see more entries this month, damnit!

As you can see from the screenshot, our theme for May 2009 is social media marketing. I figure that since Rand has been blogging about SMM a lot lately, it’s a good opportunity to keep the conversation going. We already have one entry so far, so stop dilly dallying and submit your post today!

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Posted by rebecca

A couple months ago my boyfriend (Manstery Guest) wrote an article called called 10 Fictional Diners We Want to Eat At and posted it on the food site he manages for the Village Voice. The article didn’t quite make it on some of the major social news sites, but it does receive a small amount of traffic via StumbleUpon (it has a one star rating and a couple of reviews). Yesterday someone alerted him to another site that had posted the exact same article in its entirety. This site was receiving a ton of traffic from Reddit and StumbleUpon for an article that was stolen from another site. There wasn’t even a mention of credit to the original source or a link back to Daily Fork. It was a rip off, pure and simple.

Irritated, Jason wrote a blog post over at Think Basis called "If You Can’t Think of Anything Original, Don’t Start a Blog." He also contacted the thieving site and asked the owner to remove the article. The owner ended up removing the images and a good chunk of content but kept the list intact and added a wimpy "For full info and pictures please visit Source of Story on Daily Fork…Thanks!" (As an aside, the site that stole the content is pinging off the charts on the Douche Bag Meter. They seem to steal popular lists and articles from other sites on a regular basis, including this one about the 20 Worst Action Film Stars of All Time from PopCrunch.)

Jason’s Think Basis post made it onto Reddit with the title "Some asshat makes it on reddit by plagiarizing my work. Flattering, maybe. Stealing, absolutely." The submission got a ton of upvotes and mixed comments. Some users remarked stuff like, "Who cares, everyone steals," and "That’s how professional blogging works" and "If I was the author of this blog post I’d almost be too embarrassed to claim authorship in the first place. It’s a fucking list article not Shakespeare." The latter comment is akin to saying that it’s wrong to rob a bank but it’s okay to take some money out of a 7-11 cash register, as if there are acceptable tiers of theft.

As a frequent writer/content creator/list generator/blogging monkey, I can say that it doesn’t matter if I’ve written a guide, a research paper, a thoughtful blog post, a stupid list, or drawn some idiotic illustration for shits and giggles, I created that content and I’m going to get pissed if I see that someone else has ripped it off and is passing it off as their own. The same thing happened to Matt Inman a few months ago–he created a quiz called "How Long Could You Survive Chained to a Bunk Bed with a Velociraptor?" It did pretty well virally, and a while later I got an IM from one of my social media buddies asking me to upvote a quiz on Reddit. I checked out the quiz and it was virtually the exact same premise as Matt’s quiz and even used the graphics Matt had built (the only difference was that the guy who stole the quiz MS Painted a crowbar into the dude’s hand). Matt was (understandably) pissed to see that someone had stolen something he built and was reaping the benefits from his work.

If you’re writing a list, designing a quiz, illustrating a web comic, etc., you delight in the traffic that your content attracts. I love seeing people react to my content and the links built to it. Having some sleazy jackass just copy and paste your content onto his site and steal traffic and links that could otherwise be going to you is infuriating. Jason’s right: if you can’t write or don’t have an original thought rattling around your brain, don’t bother starting a blog. If you want to start a blog but don’t fancy yourself a writer, hire some people to write for you. Or you can mention content you found on the web and liked, but LINK TO IT and properly attribute the content like a DECENT HUMAN BEING. Otherwise, you’re just ripping off other people’s hard work simply because you’re too dumb to put together a halfway decent pop culture list in numbered order.

The situation would have been different if the guy emailed Jason to say "Hey, I really liked your list and wanted to feature it on my site," and then they could have worked out some sort of agreement. It’s much worse to come across something that you wrote and the site owner never contacted you as if he figured you’d never find out about getting ripped off. To make matters worse, these a-holes can just ignore your requests to remove or edit the content for proper attribution, resulting in DMCA take down requests that may take a long time to get addressed (if they even do at all). It’s just a frustrating, stressful situation for a copywriter/content creater to find himself/herself in. It doesn’t matter if your content makes you money or if you just write for the hell of it–that content is yours, and people should respect what you’ve produced.

Now, I know I’m preaching about an Internet world that doesn’t exist ("people should get proper credit for their work, dagnabbit, and nobody should steal!"), but I’m sharing my opinion anyway. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t be a douchebag and pass off other people’s work as your own for your financial gain. It’s not hard to attribute authorship and link back to the rightful owner, and it’s also not difficult to contact the author in the first place before you plan on doing something with their content. Don’t be an asshole…and if you steal my rant post and publish it as your own, I’m gonna get stabby up in here.

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Posted by rebecca

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of questions in Q&A centering on purchasing expired domains. A lot of our members have expressed interest in buying old domains for a variety of prices (some are cheap, some are going for upwards of $50k) and want some advice on what to do with the domains once they’ve been purchased. I’m no domainer, nor am I an expert in such a business tactic, but I generally recommend one of three different options for an expired domain (and would love to hear more if you’ve got any).

Option #1: 301 Redirect the Old Domain to Your Existing Domain

The easiest and least time consuming option is to 301 redirect the old domain to your existing site. This tactic obviously works best if both sites are in the same sector and are targeting the same keywords; otherwise, if you have a pet supply site and you buy an old Texas Hold ‘Em poker site, a redirect probably might raise some eyebrows among the search engines. If, however, your site is brandnamepets.com and you buy onlinepetsupply.com and 301 redirect the domain over, you’re inheriting a lot of topical and appropriate links.

PROS:

• Is the least time consuming option
• Benefit from the value (about 95% or so) of the old domain’s links

CONS:

• Old branded anchor text pointing to your new site isn’t going to help as much as a keyword-rich anchor text
• If the old site had a penalty (for shady link building, cloaking, spamming, etc.), the penalty could carry over to your new site (I can’t confirm this to be true, but a lot of SEOs I’ve talked to believe that this is a possibility, and some have sworn that they’ve experienced it firsthand, so I guess you just have to be cautious)

Option #2: Create a Microsite That Links to Your Existing Domain

The second option requires a bit more time and effort than a 301 redirect. You could do a mini overhaul of the site and turn it into a microsite for your main domain. This option is good for exact-match domains for your targeted keyword, and there are other reasons for going the microsite route that Rand’s highlighted in his post about root domains, subdomains, subfolders and microsites. This strategy also works better if the old domain has decent rankings for the keywords you’re targeting.

PROS:

• Can cross-promote/cross-link to your existing site
• More real estate in the SERPs means more branding and potential conversions for your site
• You can do stuff on your microsite you may not want to do with your main site (e.g., launch silly viral content, experiment with a promotional tactic)
• You don’t have to have a completely robust site; a lot of microsites are smaller and have a single focus (e.g., center on a quiz or a centric idea)

CONS:

• Can be time-consuming to do an overhaul of the old site
• Aggressive promotion and linking to the existing domain can seem spammy and you could get penalized for reciprocal linking or setting up a link farm
• Your current site isn’t inheriting any of the old site’s link value that would have come via a 301 redirect
• Microdomains can be used ineffectively (see Rand’s Whiteboard Friday about the microsite mistake)

Option #3: Overhaul the Old Domain and Operate It Independently

The third option is the one that’s the most time consuming but also has its benefits. It’s like having a successful restaurant and buying another restaurant and operating them simultaneously. They’re not the exact same restaurant, but both are popular in their own right and make you money. The same goes for Option #3. You could update the content on the old domain and sell the same products that you’re selling on your current site. If you can get both sites to rank alongside each other in the SERPs, you’re increasing your conversion chances and sales potential.

PROS:

• As with Option #2, you get more real estate in the SERPs if you can get both sites to rank for your targeted search terms
• You don’t have to work hard to brand the old site if it’s a generic, keyword-rich domain–you can just focus on getting rankings and conversions
• The old site already has links pointing to it and is more established than starting with a brand new domain

CONS:

• You have to ensure that the old site doesn’t mimic the new site and runs into any duplicate content issues
• It’s time consuming to revamp and maintain the old site (you’ve essentially doubled your workload)
• As with Option #2, aggressive cross linking between the sites can raise red flags

Your course of action really depends on how much work and effort you can put into the expired domain. If you’re barely able to maintain and optimize your current site, you probably want to just 301 redirect the old site. If, however, you’re more creative and have some time on your hands, you can try your hand at crafting a microsite. If you really know your stuff and are experienced at making money off various websites, you’d probably do well with the third option.

Here’s where I open things up: do any of you have experience buying old domains? If so, what do you do with them and has your decision worked well for you? Are there any other strategies you recommend?

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Posted by rebecca

I still have my first ever email account, a Hotmail account that’s older than most of the kids on Digg nowadays. Today I logged in to retrieve a lost password and saw that I had over 600 new emails. All of them are spam, newsletters, shopping deals, etc–I rarely get "legit" emails sent to that account since the vast majority of my contacts know to reach me at my Gmail or SEOmoz email address. So it was with great amusement that I saw an email from 1/29/09 titled "Link Exchange Request" from some dude named Scott (not our Scott, don’t worry). I’ve shared the email below:

Dear owner of http://www.seomoz.org
 
I’m the webmaster of [site redacted].
 
We came across your site on the Internet and feel that it would fit perfectly into our collection of quality links at [redacted].
 
The Google PR of this site is currently 2.
 
We’ve already placed a link to your web site along with a description at our site on the  page, which we encourage you to check for accuracy.
 
We’d appreciate it if you place a link back to our site using the following HTML code (just copy and paste it into your links page):
 
<a href="[redacted]" title="[redacted] showcases the coolest SEO sites, offering tools and tips for optimization, marketing online and webtraffic.">Showcasing the coolest SEO sites and marketing online.</a>
<br>[redacted] showcases the coolest SEO sites, offering tools and tips for optimization, marketing online and webtraffic.
 
On your page, the code will look like this:
Showcasing the coolest SEO sites and marketing online. [redacted] showcases the coolest SEO sites, offering tools and tips for optimization, marketing online and webtraffic.
 
If you’d like the description of your site modified, the category changed, or if you have any other cross-promotion ideas, feel free to email us.
 
Please note that if you don’t place a reciprocal link to us somewhere on your site within a week, the link to your site will automatically be removed from our directory. Please link to us using the code above, and let us know where we can find the link.
 
Best regards,
Scott
[email address redacted]
 
This is NOT SPAM — this is a one-time reciprocal link request. We have NO INTENTION to email you again. You can also reply to this email with REMOVE in the subject line.

 I can create a laundry list of don’ts based on this email alone:

1. "Dear owner of seomoz.org" screams either "spam" or "I’m too lazy to look for an actual contact." Personalize your emails if you can. We have an entire Staff page full of smiling people with names and contact info, for crying out loud. (I have no idea why this dude emailed my Hotmail account, but whatever.)
2. Mentioning Google PR is, in my opinion, tacky. It places an over-emphasis on the importance of PageRank and also, to me, identifies the email sender as someone with very little to no knowledge of decent SEO skills.
3. Saying "we’ve already placed a link to your website" is a bit bullying and doesn’t sit well with me. I’m thinking, "I didn’t even ask for this link, so why should I feel obligated to link to you, especially when I don’t even know you?"
4. Pasting the HTML code and then explaining how the code will look on our page is just downright insulting. I mean, he’s emailing the "owner of SEOmoz.org," so you’d think that he’d give me the benefit of the doubt and figure I know how to read basic HTML code and how to link out to someone. Instead, he uses some dumbed down template without doing his homework and adapting his message to a more savvy audience.
5. This anchor text and description are just ridiculous.
6. "Please note that if you don’t place a reciprocal link to us somewhere on your site within a week, the link to your site will automatically
   be removed from our directory" is, again, kind of bullying. The tone is imposing and vaguely threatening. Me no likey.
7. "This is NOT SPAM — this is a one-time reciprocal link request. We have NO INTENTION to email you again" makes me instantly suspect that it is spam. It’s kind of like saying, "Don’t look at the gigantic zit on my face!" Well now you HAVE to look at it, right?

So did he email me again, or did Scott keep his promise?

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