The Moz Blog

PissedConsumer.com: Link Farm Dominating Google SERPs

First off I would like to point out that I am a paid search specialist, not an experienced SEO. If this article contains technical mistakes, I apologize. I am a marketer by nature, not a techie. I am technically savvy enough, however, to spot an obvious link farm/spam scheme, such as the one run by the web site: www.piss...

Un-Raveled: How Ravelry Successfully Created a Dedicated Community

Reading the recent post on the nature of online communities got me thinking about my favourite online community, Ravelry. This is one of the largest niche communities I have ever come across, with it fast approaching 200,000 members all talking about....knitting!

Help! My Industry Is Boring And My Imagination Is Hurting

This is an older topic, but one which is still worth discussing: what is the best way to investigate linkbait, viral or other content-based link building efforts in "boring" industries? How best to find out what worked in the past? How best to find out what didn't work? We have a range of tools at our disposal when it comes to content-based link building research. You've h...

Screencast Tuesday: A Walk Through the Basics of Applying Linkscape for SEO

Our intrepid developer/sysadmin Mel Gray offered in an email thread today to help me build a screencast for Linkscape and I couldn't resist. In the video, I walk through a relatively live (hence some wait times and even some unexpected data) demo of using the tool to find out more about the folks ranking well for the search phrase &qu...

Learning a Little About Email Marketing

I don't know a whole lot about email marketing, but I enjoy studying the marketing emails I receive and identifying the ones that are more effective than others. I talked to Scott, who handles our email marketing campaigns, and he praises email marketing for being "dirt cheap and very effective." I can agree on the cheap part: we use Exact Target, whose suite of email marketing solutions start at $1,000 per year for one user and go up to an Enterprise account ($15,000 a year for five users). While there are expensive email marketing packages available, you can definitely find an affordable option to start out with and get your feet wet.

SEO: A Process of Episodic or Continuous Change?

When you are through changing, you are through. ~Bruce Barton Within the (organizational) change literature there is a distinction between change that is episodic and change that is continuous. Even though both types of change may seem fairly identical to the unknowing observer, there are structural differences between them. When examined up close, it becomes clear that episodic change is discontinuous and intermittent, while continuous change is evolving and incremental.

The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending

There's a big disconnect in the way marketing dollars are allocated to search engine focused campaigns. Let me highlight: Not surprisingly, search advertising should continue to be the largest category, growing from $9.1 billion in 2007 to $20.9 billion in 2013. - Source: ...

Why New Content Briefly Flickers Out Of Google

A few days after new content shows up in Google, it will sometimes flicker out of the SERPS for a few hours. Apparently, this is common knowledge to some SEOs. This is not common knowledge to programmers like me, and I nearly made a tin foil hat in preparation for the googlicopters when I learned the project (Linkscape) that I'd worked on for months had disappeared from all SERPs on th...

Pre-Weekend Roundup for the Week of 10/12/08

Since I've caught the awesome cold that's been running rampant through our office, I was unable to publish the roundup yesterday. As such, I'm publishing it today as a temporary "Pre-Weekend Roundup." Now you'll have something fun to read on your lazy Saturday morning! Aren't I thoughtful... Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: * TechRadar has a list of 20 websites that changed the world and revolutionized the way we lead our lives. The first ever website went online August 6, 1991, which was my 8th birthday. That's one hell of a birthday gift!

Whiteboard Friday - Implementing Keyword Research

Often times people understand the process of Keyword Research, but don't quite know what to do with that beautiful, targeted, nicely-ordered list of lucrative keywords once they have it. This week Rand goes through the process of what you should consider to actually put your keyword research and targeting into action. We'll look at things like how to order work by site hierarchy and...

The Nature of Online Communities

So this weekend I had a bit of free time so I decided to learn how to play go (narrowly beating chess I might add). Now as anyone who's familiar with go will know, it will probably take me more than a weekend to learn how to play but still, you have to start somewhere right!? Of course, being an internet junkie one of the first things I did was Google around to find some information online about g...

Hiring at the mozPlex - SEOmoz Wants You!

For the first time in nearly 2 years, SEOmoz is hiring for a Search Engine Optimization specialist. We've got more consulting requests than ever, lots of work to do to improve our tools and our PRO membership and we need to grow our SEO team. Thus, we're seeking the best and brightest the SEO world has to offer - someone who can bring expertise, experience and insight to every aspect of our bus...