Russ Jones says, “Google Keyword Planner data at one point or another, especially while doing keyword research, the reality is that the data is often untrustworthy and should be viewed with great skepticism. Whether you plan to use it to help build a paid search campaign or determine which content to write, there are huge caveats to the numbers presented as Average Search Volume. Today, I want to walk through a number of the “gotchas” in Google Keyword Planner data so you can do better keyword research and make smarter decisions for you or your clients’ sites. Dirty secret... [...]

Erica McGillivray says, “The MozCon Local 2016 agenda is here! For all your local marketing and SEO needs, we’re pleased to present a fabulous lineup of speakers and topics for your enjoyment. MozCon Local is Thursday and Friday, February 18–19 2016 in Seattle. On Thursday, our friends LocalU will present a half-day of intensive workshops, and on Friday we’ll be having an entire day of keynote-style conference fun. (You do need to purchase the workshop ticket separately from the conference ticket.)“. It’s Here! The MozCon Local 2016 Agenda MOZ Blog  [...]

Craig Bradford says, “Well-researched personas can be a useful tool for marketers, but to do it correctly takes time. But what if you don’t have extra time? Using a mix of Followerwonk, Twitter, and the AIchemy language API, it’s possible to do top-level persona research very quickly. I’ve built a Python script that can help you answer two important questions about your target audience: What are the most common domains that my audience visits and spend time on? (Where should I be trying to get mentions/links/PR) What topics are they interested in or reading on those sites? (What content... [...]

MOZ team says, “Where do you host your content? Is it on your own site, or on third-party platforms like Medium and LinkedIn? If you’re not yet thinking about the ramifications of using hosted blog platforms for your content versus your own site, now’s your chance to start. In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explores the boons and pitfalls of using outside websites to distribute and share your content“. How to Use Hosted Blog Platforms for SEO & Content Distribution MOZ Blog  [...]

Jennifer Slegg says, “For many SEOs, a glimpse at the Google’s Search Quality Rater’s Guidelines is akin to looking into Google’s ranking algorithm. While they don’t give the secret sauce to rank number one on Google, they do offer some incredible insight into what Google views as quality – and not-so-quality – and the types of pages they want to serve at the top of their search results. Last week, Google made the unprecedented move of releasing the entire Search Quality Rater’s Guidelines, following an analysis of a leaked copy obtained by The SEM Post. While Google released... [...]

Gianluca Fiorelli says, “Whenever Google announces something as important as a new algorithm, I always try to hold off on writing about it immediately, to let the dust settle, digest the news and the posts that talk about it, investigate, and then, finally, draw conclusions. I did so in the case of Hummingbird. I do it now for RankBrain. In the case of RankBrain, this is even more correct, because — let’s be honest — we know next to nothing about how RankBrain works. The only things that Google has said publicly are in the video Bloomberg published and the few things unnamed Googlers... [...]

Paddy Moogan says, “Content marketing is hard. The problem is that the process looks easy. You brainstorm some ideas, choose one that you like, design and build it, do some outreach and you get traffic, links and social shares. Job done. It’s a bit like link building, where someone may say, “Just build great content and the links will come.” Unfortunately, it’s very rarely that straightforward. Yes, sometimes you can get lucky and something will fly with little effort. But anyone that says that content marketing is easy has probably never done it over and over again.... [...]

Jay Leary says, “Stating the obvious here, but content is a massively important part of any inbound marketing campaign. The problem that most of us run into — and I know this well from years of SEO consulting with publishers — is that even “good” content can fade from view without a share, link, or conversion. Engaging an audience isn’t as simple as clicking “publish.” So, how do we avoid making phantom content a habit? For Moz, timely data has been a big part of the answer. Over the years, we’ve built internal tools like1Metric to guide our work.... [...]

MOZ team says, “When it comes to the link building process, there’s a lot to keep track of — and that process today is pretty different from what it was a few short years ago. In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand scores 20 different attributes that can influence a link’s value based on whether or not they still matter in 2015/2016“. 20 Attributes that Influence a Link’s Value – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]

Ronell Smith says, “When the client asked to “go mute” during our monthly client call, there was no reason to sound the alarm. After all, being able to talk through what they’ve heard as a team, in private, was normal. But when the always-skeptical global marketing director said the COO (who has been in the room for the 10 minutes of analytics discussion) wants to take the discussion offline for a bit, but wants you to hold on, I knew things had likely gone off the rails. “Thanks for holding, you guys,” says the head of marketing upon taking the phone off mute... [...]