The Scientific Secrets of Shareable Content: What Buzzfeed, Malcolm Gladwell & #TheDress Have in Common

Have you ever wondered why, in spite of your best intentions, you just can’t resist a clickbait headline on Buzzfeed?

What was it about #TheDress that got everyone up in arms? And what is it about Malcolm Gladwell that makes his work so interesting?

Is it possible to replicate this kind of remarkability, or is it entirely unpredictable?

The truth is there is compelling science behind the success of shareable content. The stuff that gets people talking isn’t quite as random as you ...

The post The Scientific Secrets of Shareable Content: What Buzzfeed, Malcolm Gladwell & #TheDress Have in Common appeared first on Social.

Spam Score: Moz's New Metric to Measure Penalization Risk

Posted by randfish

Today, I'm very excited to announce that Moz's Spam Score, an R&D project we've worked on for nearly a year, is finally going live. In this post, you can learn more about how we're calculating spam score, what it means, and how you can potentially use it in your SEO work.

How does Spam Score work?

Over the last year, our data science team, led by Dr. Matt Peters, examined a great number of potential factors that predicted that a site might be penalized or banned by Google. We found strong correlations with 17 unique factors we call "spam flags," and turned them into a score.

Almost every subdomain in Mozscape (our web index) now has a Spam Score attached to it, and this score is viewable inside Open Site Explorer (and soon, the MozBar and other tools). The score is simple; it just records the quantity of spam flags the subdomain triggers. Our correlations showed that no particular flag was more likely than others to mean a domain was penalized/banned in Google, but firing many flags had a very strong correlation (you can see the math below).

Spam Score currently operates only on the subdomain level—we don't have it for pages or root domains. It's been my experience and the experience of many other SEOs in the field that a great deal of link spam is tied to the subdomain-level. There are plenty of exceptions—manipulative links can and do live on plenty of high-quality sites—but as we've tested, we found that subdomain-level Spam Score was the best solution we could create at web scale. It does a solid job with the most obvious, nastiest spam, and a decent job highlighting risk in other areas, too.

How to access Spam Score

Right now, you can find Spam Score inside Open Site Explorer, both in the top metrics (just below domain/page authority) and in its own tab labeled "Spam Analysis." Spam Score is only available for Pro subscribers right now, though in the future, we may make the score in the metrics section available to everyone.

The current Spam Analysis page includes a list of subdomains or pages linking to your site. You can toggle the target to look at all links to a given subdomain on your site, given pages, or the entire root domain. You can further toggle source tier to look at the Spam Score for incoming linking pages or subdomains (but in the case of pages, we're still showing the Spam Score for the subdomain on which that page is hosted).

You can click on any Spam Score row and see the details about which flags were triggered. We'll bring you to a page like this:

Back on the original Spam Analysis page, at the very bottom of the rows, you'll find an option to export a disavow file, which is compatible with Google Webmaster Tools. You can choose to filter the file to contain only those sites with a given spam flag count or higher:

Disavow exports usually take less than 3 hours to finish. We can send you an email when it's ready, too.

WARNING: Please do not export this file and simply upload it to Google! You can really, really hurt your site's ranking and there may be no way to recover. Instead, carefully sort through the links therein and make sure you really do want to disavow what's in there. You can easily remove/edit the file to take out links you feel are not spam. When Moz's Cyrus Shepard disavowed every link to his own site, it took more than a year for his rankings to return!

We've actually made the file not-wholly-ready for upload to Google in order to be sure folks aren't too cavalier with this particular step. You'll need to open it up and make some edits (specifically to lines at the top of the file) in order to ready it for Webmaster Tools

In the near future, we hope to have Spam Score in the Mozbar as well, which might look like this:

Sweet, right? :-)

Potential use cases for Spam Analysis

This list probably isn't exhaustive, but these are a few of the ways we've been playing around with the data:

1. Checking for spammy links to your own site: Almost every site has at least a few bad links pointing to it, but it's been hard to know how much or how many potentially harmful links you might have until now. Run a quick spam analysis and see if there's enough there to cause concern.
2. Evaluating potential links: This is a big one where we think Spam Score can be helpful. It's not going to catch every potentially bad link, and you should certainly still use your brain for evaluation too, but as you're scanning a list of link opportunities or surfing to various sites, having the ability to see if they fire a lot of flags is a great warning sign.
3. Link cleanup: Link cleanup projects can be messy, involved, precarious, and massively tedious. Spam Score might not catch everything, but sorting links by it can be hugely helpful in identifying potentially nasty stuff, and filtering out the more probably clean links.
4. Disavow Files: Again, because Spam Score won't perfectly catch everything, you will likely need to do some additional work here (especially if the site you're working on has done some link buying on more generally trustworthy domains), but it can save you a heap of time evaluating and listing the worst and most obvious junk.

Over time, we're also excited about using Spam Score to help improve the PA and DA calculations (it's not currently in there), as well as adding it to other tools and data sources. We'd love your feedback and insight about where you'd most want to see Spam Score get involved.

Details about Spam Score's calculation

This section comes courtesy of Moz's head of data science, Dr. Matt Peters, who created the metric and deserves (at least in my humble opinion) a big round of applause. - Rand

Definition of "spam"

Before diving into the details of the individual spam flags and their calculation, it's important to first describe our data gathering process and "spam" definition.

For our purposes, we followed Google's definition of spam and gathered labels for a large number of sites as follows.

• First, we randomly selected a large number of subdomains from the Mozscape index stratified by mozRank.
• Then we crawled the subdomains and threw out any that didn't return a "200 OK" (redirects, errors, etc).
• Finally, we collected the top 10 de-personalized, geo-agnostic Google-US search results using the full subdomain name as the keyword and checked whether any of those results matched the original keyword. If they did not, we called the subdomain "spam," otherwise we called it "ham."

We performed the most recent data collection in November 2014 (after the Penguin 3.0 update) for about 500,000 subdomains.

Relationship between number of flags and spam

The overall Spam Score is currently an aggregate of 17 different "flags." You can think of each flag a potential "warning sign" that signals that a site may be spammy. The overall likelihood of spam increases as a site accumulates more and more flags, so that the total number of flags is a strong predictor of spam. Accordingly, the flags are designed to be used together—no single flag, or even a few flags, is cause for concern (and indeed most sites will trigger at least a few flags).

The following table shows the relationship between the number of flags and percent of sites with those flags that we found Google had penalized or banned:

ABOVE: The overall probability of spam vs. the number of spam flags. Data collected in Nov. 2014 for approximately 500K subdomains. The table also highlights the three overall danger levels: low/green (< 10%) moderate/yellow (10-50%) and high/red (>50%)

The overall spam percent averaged across a large number of sites increases in lock step with the number of flags; however there are outliers in every category. For example, there are a small number of sites with very few flags that are tagged as spam by Google and conversely a small number of sites with many flags that are not spam.

Spam flag details

The individual spam flags capture a wide range of spam signals link profiles, anchor text, on page signals and properties of the domain name. At a high level the process to determine the spam flags for each subdomain is:

• Collect link metrics from Mozscape (mozRank, mozTrust, number of linking domains, etc).
• Collect anchor text metrics from Mozscape (top anchor text phrases sorted by number of links)
• Collect the top five pages by Page Authority on the subdomain from Mozscape
• Crawl the top five pages plus the home page and process to extract on page signals
• Provide the output for Mozscape to include in the next index release cycle

Since the spam flags are incorporated into in the Mozscape index, fresh data is released with each new index. Right now, we crawl and process the spam flags for each subdomains every two - three months although this may change in the future.

Link flags

The following table lists the link and anchor text related flags with the the odds ratio for each flag. For each flag, we can compute two percents: the percent of sites with that flag that are penalized by Google and the percent of sites with that flag that were not penalized. The odds ratio is the ratio of these percents and gives the increase in likelihood that a site is spam if it has the flag. For example, the first row says that a site with this flag is 12.4 times more likely to be spam than one without the flag.

ABOVE: Description and odds ratio of link and anchor text related spam flags. In addition to a description, it lists the odds ratio for each flag which gives the overall increase in spam likelihood if the flag is present).

Working down the table, the flags are:

• Low mozTrust to mozRank ratio: Sites with low mozTrust compared to mozRank are likely to be spam.
• Large site with few links: Large sites with many pages tend to also have many links and large sites without a corresponding large number of links are likely to be spam.
• Site link diversity is low: If a large percentage of links to a site are from a few domains it is likely to be spam.
• Ratio of followed to nofollowed subdomains/domains (two separate flags): Sites with a large number of followed links relative to nofollowed are likely to be spam.
• Small proportion of branded links (anchor text): Organically occurring links tend to contain a disproportionate amount of banded keywords. If a site does not have a lot of branded anchor text, it's a signal the links are not organic.

On-page flags

Similar to the link flags, the following table lists the on page and domain name related flags:

ABOVE: Description and odds ratio of on page and domain name related spam flags. In addition to a description, it lists the odds ratio for each flag which gives the overall increase in spam likelihood if the flag is present).

• Thin content: If a site has a relatively small ratio of content to navigation chrome it's likely to be spam.
• Site mark-up is abnormally small: Non-spam sites tend to invest in rich user experiences with CSS, Javascript and extensive mark-up. Accordingly, a large ratio of text to mark-up is a spam signal.
• Large number of external links: A site with a large number of external links may look spammy.
• Low number of internal links: Real sites tend to link heavily to themselves via internal navigation and a relative lack of internal links is a spam signal.
• Anchor text-heavy page: Sites with a lot of anchor text are more likely to be spam then those with more content and less links.
• External links in navigation: Spam sites may hide external links in the sidebar or footer.
• No contact info: Real sites prominently display their social and other contact information.
• Low number of pages found: A site with only one or a few pages is more likely to be spam than one with many pages.
• TLD correlated with spam domains: Certain TLDs are more spammy than others (e.g. pw).
• Domain name length: A long subdomain name like "bycheapviagra.freeshipping.onlinepharmacy.com" may indicate keyword stuffing.
• Domain name contains numerals: domain names with numerals may be automatically generated and therefore spam.

If you'd like some more details on the technical aspects of the spam score, check out the video of Matt's 2012 MozCon talk about Algorithmic Spam Detection or the slides (many of the details have evolved, but the overall ideas are the same):

We'd love your feedback

As with all metrics, Spam Score won't be perfect. We'd love to hear your feedback and ideas for improving the score as well as what you'd like to see from it's in-product application in the future. Feel free to leave comments on this post, or to email Matt (matt at moz dot com) and me (rand at moz dot com) privately with any suggestions.

Good luck cleaning up and preventing link spam!

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‘What Should I Post on Facebook?’ 12 Facebook Tactics Working Right Now

If you feel challenged by Facebook marketing these days, you should know you’re not alone.

In an increasingly crowded news feed, Facebook’s algorithm updates can make it tough for brands to get much notice.

In fact, brands are now responding to plunging organic reach on Facebook by posting more content to Instagram than they are to Facebook, according to a report by research firm L2.

But don’t despair; there’s plenty of life left in Facebook yet. We’ve been scouring the web to find out what’s working on Facebook ...

The post ‘What Should I Post on Facebook?’ 12 Facebook Tactics Working Right Now appeared first on Social.

What Does an SEO Do In Their Day-to-Day Work - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

There's a common misconception that SEO is a "one and done" task -- that you clean up and optimize a site, and once that's done, you can focus your efforts elsewhere. There's so much more to the day-to-day work of an SEO, though, and in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand walks us through those ongoing parts of the job.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to tackle a question I get sometimes about the day-to-day activities of an SEO and what should you do after you've completed that first site audit, sort of fixed the problems, what does the day-to-day work look like?

A lot of SEOs, especially those coming from consulting backgrounds or who've joined companies as in-house SEOs who've had kind of this big project based SEO work to do, find themselves struggling after that's done. Typically, that process is pretty straightforward. You kind of do an audit. You look at all the things on the site. You figure out what's wrong, what's missing, where are opportunities that we could execute on. Maybe you do some competitive analysis, some market analysis. You identify those fixes. You work with teams to make those changes, validate the results have been completed, and then you're sort of in this, "Well, do I go back and audit again and try to iterate and improve again?"

That doesn't feel quite right, but it also doesn't necessarily feel quite right to go to the very, very old-school SEO model of like, "All right, we've got these keywords we're trying to rank for. Let's optimize our content, get some links, check our rankings for them, and then try to rinse and repeat and keep improving." This model's pretty broken I'd say and just not reflective of the reality of opportunities that are in SEO or the reality of the tactics that work today.

So the way that I like to think about this is the SEO audit, an SEO focused audit -- which is trying to say, "What traffic could we get? What's missing? What's broken and wrong?" -- only works at the low level and the very tactical trenches of a marketing process or a business process. What you really need to do is you want to be more incrementally based, but you need to be informed by and you need to be evolving your tactics and your work based on what is the business need right now.

So this process is about saying, "What are the top level company and marketing goals overall? For everyone in the company, what are we trying to accomplish this year, this quarter, the next three year plan? What are we trying to achieve?" Then figure out areas where SEO can best contribute to that work, and then from there you're creating tactical lists of projects that maybe you're going to positively move the right needles, the ones that you've identified, and then you're going to evaluate and prioritize which ones you want to implement first, second, and third in what order, and test implement those.

So, hey we've figured out that we think that a new blog section for this particular piece of content, or we think that getting some user generated content, building up some community around this section would be terrific, or we think outreach to these kinds of publications or building up our social stats in these worlds will expose us to the right people who can earn us the amplification we'll need to rank better, etc., etc. Okay, this is a fine process, and you're going to want to do this, I would say, at least annually and maybe even think about it quarterly.

All this work is essentially centered on a customer profile universe, a universe of people. I've got my person X, Y, and Z here, but your customer universe may involve many different personas. It may involve just one type of person you're targeting that you're always trying to reach over and over again, but it probably involves also the people who influence that direct subsection of your market.

From there, you can take the, "Hey, you know what, person Z is really interested in and consumes and searches for these types of content topics and these kinds of keywords, so we're going to start by taking keyword set A or content set A and figure out our keyword list and our content list. We're going to create, launch, and promote work that supports that." It could be content pieces, could be video, could be some combination of those things in social media, all forms of content. It could be tools, whatever you want, an application.

We're going to launch that, promote it, and then work on some amplification, and then we're going to measure and learn, which is a critical part of that process. I want to not only see what are my results, but what can I learn from what we just did and hopefully I'll get better and better at iterating on this process. This process will work iteratively, kind of similar to our broken process over here or to our site audit process there. It will work iteratively, and then every now and then you should pop back up and go, "Hey, you know what, I feel like we've exhausted the easiest 80% of value that we're going to get from 20% of the work on keyword set A. Let's move on and go visit keyword set B now, and then let's go visit content set C."

Occasionally, you're even going to want to move one step up and say, "Hey, you know what, maybe our personas or our market is changing a little bit. We want to try targeting some new customers. We're going to look at these folks over here or this guy over here and see if we can reach them and their influencers with new kinds of content and topics and keywords, and that sort of thing."

If your site is rocking and rolling, if you've completed your audit, things are just smooth sailing, then this kind of a process is going to work much better, so long as it's tied to real business objectives. Then when you achieve results here, you can point back to, "Hey, remember I told you these are the areas SEO can contribute to our overall goals, and now I can connect these up directly. The metrics that I get from all this SEO stuff can tie directly to those areas, can tie directly to the business goals." Everyone from the CEO on down is going to love what you're doing for the company.

All right everyone, I hope you'll join me again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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The Delightfully Short Guide to Social Media ROI

If the concept of social media ROI feels rather enormous, you’re not alone.

I am amazed—and sometimes astounded—at the breadth of the topic.

So that’s made the exercise of writing a “delightfully short” guide to social media ROI all the more fun and challenging. I’ve given myself under 1,000 words to provide an overview of social media ROI and how to apply it to your social media marketing efforts. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!

What Does Social Media ROI Look Like?

ROI has its ...

The post The Delightfully Short Guide to Social Media ROI appeared first on Social.

A Sneak Preview of #MozCon 2015

Posted by EricaMcGillivray

Considering coming to MozCon, July 13-15 in Seattle this year? Maybe you're on the fence because you're not sure what's going on, and most importantly, what our amazing speakers are talking about? I hear you, MozCon fans! While the agenda is still being finalized, we wanted to give you a sneak preview.

If you're like "oh, shit, I forgot to buy my MozCon ticket!,” do so now:

Buy your ticket!

We're still finalizing a couple more speakers and topics, and of course, community speakers submissions are fast approaching. Keep your eye out here on April 2nd for more info!

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Adam Singer Analytics Advocate at Google @AdamSinger Adam Singer is Analytics Advocate at Google, startup adviser, investor, and blogger. He previously was director for a global consulting team and has provided digital strategy for brands in a variety of industries including marketing, technology, healthcare, and more. Topic: Digital Analytics: People, Process, Platform In a data-driven world, Adam will pull you back to think again about your analytics, best practices, and how you report.
Cindy Krum Founder and CEO at MobileMoxie LLC. Twitter: @Suzzicks Cindy Krum is the CEO and Founder of MobileMoxie, LLC, and author of Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are. She brings fresh and creative ideas to her clients, and regularly speaks at US and international digital marketing events. Topic: Become a Mobile SEO Superhero With Google's algorithm mobile change, Cindy will walk you through the changes, what they mean for your site and its rankings, and what you should be focusing on going forward.
Courtney Seiter Head of Content Marketing at Buffer Twitter: @courtneyseiter Courtney Seiter examines social media and workplace culture at Buffer, and her writing has been published at TIME, Fast Company, Lifehacker, Inc., and more. She lives in Nashville, where she is a founder of Girls to the Moon, a leadership camp for girls. Topic: The Psychology of Social Media Courtney dives into the science of why people post, share, and build relationships on social media and how to create an even more irresistible social media experience for your audience.
Dana DiTomaso Partner at Kick Point Inc Twitter: @danaditomaso Whether at a conference, on the radio, or in a meeting, Dana DiTomaso likes to impart wisdom to help you turn a lot of marketing bullshit into real strategies to grow your business. Dana is also a fan of the random fact. Kick Point often celebrates "Watershed Wednesday" because of her diverse work and education background. In her spare time, Dana drinks tea and yells at the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Topic: How to Make Your Marketing Match Your Reality Too often, the tone and promises of marketing don't match those of the business itself. Dana will help you bring your brand identity together, both in-store and online.
David Mihm Director of Local Search Strategy at Moz Twitter: @davidmihm David Mihm has created and promoted search-friendly websites for clients of all sizes since the early 2000’s. David co-founded GetListed.org, which he sold to Moz in November 2012. He now serves as Moz's Director of Local Search Strategy. Topic: Astoundingly Useful Applications of Facebook Search for Marketers Facebook has long neglected its potential as a local search giant, and as a result, its Graph Search product is an afterthought for too many marketers. David showcases Graph-powered insights for small-business marketers—with utility well beyond Facebook.
Joanna Wiebe Creator at Copy Hackers Twitter: @copyhackers The original conversion copywriter, Joanna Wiebe is the cofounder of Snap and Copy Hackers, where startups learn to convert like mofos. She is a natural-born thief who steals messages from the mouths of customers and turns their words into higher-converting copy. Topic: Sinners Are Winners: How Messaging Your Prospect's Darkest Desires Can Boost Engagement Playing it too safe? Joanna will show you how to tap into your prospects' secret wishes in your copy—and use bold messages your competitors wouldn't dare use.
Kristina Halvorson Founder at Brain Traffic Twitter: @halvorson Kristina Halvorson is widely recognized as one of the most important voices in content strategy. She is the founder of Brain Traffic, the coauthor of Content Strategy for the Web, and the founder of the Confab content strategy conferences. Topic: How To Do Content Strategy (Probably) Put 10 people in a room and ask them to define “content strategy,” and you’ll likely get 10 different answers. Kristina will share her own tried-and-true approach!
Lexi Mills Head of Digital at Dynamo PR Twitter: @leximills Lexi Mills is a PR SEO specialist, with over eight years experience working with both small firms and big brands. She has designed and implemented integrated PR, SEO, content, and social campaigns in the UK, Europe, and USA for B2B and B2C clients. Topic title TBD, but Lexi will be covering PR.
Marshall Simmonds Founder and CEO at Define Media Group, Inc. Twitter: @mdsimmonds Marshall Simmonds is the Founder of Define Media Group, the enterprise audience development company specializing in strategic search and social marketing. Define works with many of the most influential brands and networks in the world. Topic: Dark Search and Social—Run Rabbit Run! With data from 112 publishers with 164+ billion page views, Marshall will dive into the challenges of tracking social and search campaigns. He'll focus on history's lessons and what’s happening with direct and mobile traffic in an app-heavy world.
Marta Turek Senior Digital Marketing Programs Manager at ROI·DNA Twitter: @MTurek Marta holds seven years of experience in digital advertising, specializing in lead generation, and paid search marketing. Developing digital strategies and telling stories through data is what rocks her boat. Topic: Too Busy to Do Good Work Don't let your work suffer from being busy. Instead, let Marta show you the tactics to clean up your PPC processes to finally get more strategic.
Matthew Brown Head of Special Projects at Moz Twitter: @MatthewJBrown Matthew runs Special Projects at Moz. This has been going on for two years, and we're still not totally sure what that means. Topic: An SEO's Guide to the Insane World of Content Find yourself arguing whether or not SEO is just great content? Matthew will talk through a strategic and tactical journey of content strategy from an SEO's viewpoint and leave you with new tools and tactics.
Mig Reyes Designer at Basecamp Twitter: @migreyes Mig Reyes is a traditionally trained graphic designer who escaped advertising agency life, cut his teeth at the T-shirt powerhouse known as Threadless, and now helps lead branding, marketing and even a bit of product work at Basecamp. Topic title TBD, but Mig will be focusing on putting your creative energies into your marketing.
Pete Meyers Marketing Scientist at Moz Twitter: @dr_pete Dr. Pete Meyers is Marketing Scientist for Moz, where he works on product research and data-driven content. He has spent the past three years building research tools to monitor Google, including the MozCast project, and he curates the Google Algorithm History. Topic: Surviving Google: SEO in 2020 Organic results are disappearing, replaced by Knowledge Graph, direct answers, new ad hybrids, and more. How can SEOs be ready for Google in five years?
Purna Virji Founder and CEO of Purview Marketing Twitter: @purnavirji Purna is the founder and CEO of Purview Marketing, a boutique consulting firm helping companies of all sizes grow via search and content marketing. Purna is an avid traveler and speaks six languages (and can swear in 17!). Topic: How to Better Sell SEO to the C-Suite Whether you need more resources, trust, or buy-in, Purna will share practical tips for focusing on Profit & Loss and better communicating SEO planning, forecasting, and strategizing.
Rand Fishkin Founder at Moz Twitter: @randfish Husband of Geraldine. Founder of Moz. Presenter of Whiteboard Friday. Writer of blog posts. Sender of tweets. Topic: Onsite SEO in 2015: An Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Marketer SEO has come full circle as on-page SEO has returned to the forefront. Rand will share how and why on-site SEO is so important and show off uncommon tactics with powerful potential.
Richard Millington Founder at FeverBee Twitter: @RichMillington Richard is the Founder of FeverBee, a community consultancy, and the author of Buzzing Communities. Topic: Reaching Critical Mass: 150 Active Members Imagine you could create and rejuvenate a successful community whenever you like? Richard Millington will take you through a step by step action plan to reach critical mass.
Wil Reynolds Director of Strategy at Seer Interactive Twitter: @wilreynolds Wil Reynolds founded Seer with a focus on doing great things for its clients, team, and the community. His passion for driving and analyzing the impact that a site's traffic has on the company's bottom line has shaped SEO and digital marketing industries. Wil also actively supports the Covenant House. Topic: The Time to Do the Web Right Is Incredibly Short In "web time," competitive advantage can be lost in an instant, speed matters. Wil shares how keep on the pulse of competitor agility and how to get things done to stay ahead of them.

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In addition to fabulous days full of great content from extraordinary minds, we're also cooking up three nights of great fun, networking, and MozCon love. Monday night, our partners will be hosting a pub crawl in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood with special prizes for those who hit every spot. Tuesday night, we're doing a networking event, featuring you, the community, and your passions besides marketing. Details to come as they're finalized! And finally, Wednesday night, we'll say 'see you next year' with our traditional party at the Garage: karaoke, bowling, pool, and chilling with friends.

Questions about MozCon? I'm happy to answer them in the comments.

See you at MozCon, friends!

Buy your ticket!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The Research & Science Behind Finding Your Best Profile Picture

One of the first things I do when I join a new social network is to upload a profile picture.

But which profile picture should I choose? Is there a best one?

Profile pictures have always been a bit of a gray area for me inasmuch as I post a picture I think looks good without knowing its actual effect on my audience.

Is there such thing as a perfect, best profile picture?

Interestingly, there’s been some rather great research about the different elements of profile pictures ...

The post The Research & Science Behind Finding Your Best Profile Picture appeared first on Social.

Advanced Content Analysis in Google Analytics

Posted by Jeffalytics

We analyze the performance of our content every day. Sometimes it's subconscious, like when we check the number of tweets we get from a new blog post. Other times, we make more conscious efforts, like reviewing performance metrics in Google Analytics.

This feedback—both formal and anecdotal—informs what we do next. It influences future blog posts and validates our strategies. Reviewing content performance on a regular basis has been key to the growth of many online publishers. We should all be taking note of these successes as we build our own content marketing efforts.

Paying attention to which of your content efforts are working well is the cornerstone to data-driven marketing. The companies that make these investments can produce tremendous results. For an in-depth analysis on the importance of being data driven, here are two recent articles that inspired me:

• How A Real Estate Blog Went From 2,000 To 18,000,000 Visits Per Month In Two Years
• Quantifying the Clickbait and Linkbait in BuzzFeed Article Titles

These articles show how taking data-driven approach to producing content can produce great results. Exponential traffic and revenue in these cases.

I don't know about you, but exponential traffic sounds pretty great to me!

But we will never get there without taking a methodical and data-driven approach to our efforts. We will never get there if we are only counting page views.

It's time to take things to the next level!

Using Google Analytics Content Groupings and Dimensions to inform our content strategy

For many of us, Google Analytics is the tool of choice for analyzing website performance. It's free, easy to use, and extremely powerful. But because of the free and easy nature, most users do not explore the more advanced features of the product.

One of the more advanced features that you have at your disposal is content grouping. Content grouping allows you to gather your content into common themes to create a more meaningful analysis of your data.

For example, you can group your blog posts by the type of content that they represent. This grouping is helpful if you cover many topics on your website or sell many products.

This is something that I have been doing for years on my own site. It helps me understand which topics resonate the most with readers. It also helps understand which topics drive organic search visitors.

In the past, I would have to do this in a manual fashion. It involved exporting data into Excel and grouping content by the presence of certain words in the page URL. This was an ugly manual process that I would not wish on anyone.

With content grouping in Google Analytics, we can get a view of this data with little effort involved. Here is a screenshot of traffic performance by content groups, based on common topics that I cover on my blog.

This simple screenshot is quite revealing. It shows which topics resonate the most, as well as content deficiencies. And these reports get even more valuable once you start to segment your data. More on this shortly.

Configuring content groupings in Google Analytics

Before we can get into deep analysis of our content, it makes sense for us to talk about how we can configure this report in Google Analytics.

There are three ways to set up this feature. The easiest way to do it is by creating rules to define your groups. Rules work like advanced segments in Google Analytics. Set the criteria for your groupings and Google Analytics will do the rest of the work.

Note that these rules work only on the page URL, page title or screen name (for apps).

Here is an example of how to configure groupings matching words found in your page URLs.

The definitions work as a waterfall. If a page url/title fits in your first definition, we exclude it from each future definition. For this reason, we want to be specific with our first rules and then leave the more general and "catch all" rules for the end.

Notice how I used a regular expression to define what makes up a PPC Page. The pipe (|) symbol serving as an "or" statement in the expression. You can also use the "or" statement on the right, but this can get unwieldy fast.

For long regular expressions, use the extraction method for content grouping. This works wonders for complex regular expressions with several criteria to classify posts.

Using code to define your content groupings

The above options use the data that you already send to Google Analytics with each page view (page URL and page title). While this works well if we have search friendly URLs and titles, it is also limiting in our ability to perform analysis.

If you would like to analyze beyond words in your content, then you will need to use code to push this data into Google Analytics.

While this sounds daunting, it is not too bad. I was able to get this code working in less than 30 minutes to provide a proof of concept.

What are some groupings that you might want to use for measuring content performance?

How about the length of your content? Many of us have seen studies on the importance of the length of our content. Is it worthwhile to write longer articles, or is that just a "best practice" that does not apply to your site?

Let's measure it!

How about the date that you published your content? If you put the date of your post in the URL, you can use rules to build these content groupings. I don't include the publishing year in my URL, so I would need code to get this done.

Here is how I configured Google Analytics to track word counts and publishing year of articles.

First, you set a new definition for your content grouping in the admin section. I selected indexes 4 & 5 to avoid any potential conflicts.

As soon as you have defined your grouping, Google will give you code snippets to use for tracking in Google Analytics. There is code for Classic and Universal Analytics.

I use Google Tag Manager on my website, so I pushed data into the system using the data layer functionality.

My code looked like this for tracking word count, word count range and year published:

We trigger this code on every page of my website using native functions from WordPress. If you are using Google Tag Manager and WordPress, I would be more than happy to provide you with the code that I used to build this data layer.

Next, I created a macro in Tag Manager to recognize these variables. I gave a default value of 0-200—in the event that a word count is unavailable from WordPress, it will list 0-200 words. Then in my Universal Analytics tag, I set content groups in the tag configuration options. My indexes correspond to the groups we set in the Google Analytics interface. The words in the {{}} brackets represent the macros we defined above. After publishing, every page load will send content grouping data into Google Analytics. Pretty awesome!

Once your definitions are in place, you will see your groups listed in the admin section of Google Analytics. You can define up to 5 unique content groups per view. For even more on the topic of setting up content groupings, here is an awesome article by Michael King on content groupings for the user journey.

Viewing this data in Google Analytics

Once your definitions are in place, Google Analytics will start to push this data into your account. Note that these definitions do not work retroactively—only on data moving forward. Unfortunately that means that you will need to wait a few days for meaningful analysis of this data.

But when the data starts to come in, it's beautiful!

Let's start with the content grouping definitions for post topic type. I have had these in place for a while, so this data is already providing meaningful insights. Here is what we start to see when looking at website visits by topic type.

While WordPress pages drive the most traffic, they have relatively low value per page view. This does not count any affiliate revenue, but it is indicative of the traffic brought in by this topic. High traffic volume/low value.

This high traffic volume, low page value metric helps me draw two conclusions:

1. I need a better call to action and offer for WordPress content. I can't write about this topic without having an action for visitors to take. I may need to invest in some sort of premium content for this topic.
2. As I plan my content strategy, it may not make a lot of sense to focus on WordPress if I cannot find a way to get more value out of the visits. It is clear that Google Analytics content is more valuable for me.

By grouping my content into themes, I now have a fresh perspective on the effectiveness of my content. Instead of choosing the topic on my mind on any given day, I may benefit by only writing about Google Analytics.

This level of insight is not possible without content grouping. Content grouping is incredible when you have this data tied into the goals you have already set up with Google Analytics.

Checking in on our code-driven content groupings

As you can see, content grouping provides excellent insights into your content strategy performance. If you have thousands of articles on your website, content groupings will help you sift through the noise and go right to the signal.

You can gain insight into other aspects of your content strategy through this same method. Let's check in on the groupings that we set up through code earlier in this article. Please note that this is a proof of concept with only a small amount of data to support the groupings. Over time, your picture will start to become more valuable as you see conversions rolling into your account.

How many page views are we getting for the content we produced over the past 4 years? This is easy to view with our content groupings. This is a traffic pattern that I had assumed in my mind (I wrote much more in 2013 than 2014). Now, I have the numbers to prove it.

What about by word count?

Not surprising, lower word count pages (like the homepage) are getting the most traffic.

This data will get even more interesting over time.

Applying segmentation to our content groupings

We have grouped our content by length of the article and when it was published. Now we can measure how these factors impact our organic search traffic. We can do this a few ways. My preferred method is to look at the medium of organic search and then use a secondary dimension of content group.

Again, we see that our shorter articles are driving the most search traffic. This is for two reasons. 1) The default content range is 0-200, so this includes articles with no word count defined by WordPress. 2) It includes our home page, which often ranks for branded search results.

If granular keyword data were still available in Google Analytics, we would be able to segment brand/non brand traffic. But alas.

We can do this same analysis by year as well.

Notice that the current year is receiving the most organic traffic. I can only assume that this is again due to branded traffic.

Content grouping makes everything better!

Where else does content grouping make Google Analytics data shine?

Many of your favorite Google Analytics reports get better with content groupings. The behavior flow report comes to life with your content groupings.

We no longer need to look at this report with several branches of data hidden from view. Now you can see how people visit your site based on your pre-defined content groupings.

Custom Reports

You can also use custom reports to combine several fields together. For example, try to view organic visits by the year you wrote the content and the topics into a single report.

You can also start to add your conversion data in place and understand the value of the content that you have produced over the years.

Several years ago I wrote a post about investing in SEO for YouMoz. The basic premise is that SEO investment does not fit into normal budget constraints. For example, you may budget for all your SEO efforts in 2015, but there is a revenue impact of these efforts for years to come.

A custom report by post year can help you better understand the continued return on your SEO investment over the years.

What other content groupings make sense to explore?

Once we start grouping our content for analysis, many possibilities become available. Here are a few more ideas for what we can measure for content groupings:

• Grouping by social share counts. How do share counts affect traffic and conversions? I have done a proof of concept with social shares in the past and the data is revealing.
• Grouping by external links using the Mozscape API. Push this into your data layer and you can start to analyze how links may be impacting your content performance.
• Grouping by any on page metadata for your post. We included word count here, but we can also include title length, keyword usage, etc.
• Grouping by targeted keyword. Use a custom field from WordPress (or your CMS) to push this into your data layer for content grouping.
• More specific date based grouping. Instead of grouping by year, group by month or week to see how strategies take hold more quickly.
• Grouping by author of content. Which authors drive the most traffic and revenue?
• Grouping by department of company. Are certain departments producing better content?

You can measure pretty much anything with content grouping. The only real limitation being your imagination AND Google's current limit of 5 content groups in each view. You can even get around that by using multiple views if you want.

What type of questions can we answer with content groupings?

With content groupings in place, we can answer more business questions than standard content reports. Here are a few business questions I can start to answer with the content groupings we have already discussed.

• Is our content marketing hitting the mark?
• Are we making progress toward our goals with our recent content marketing?
• Did our SEO investment mature like we thought it would?
• Has our new focus on converting visitors affected overall revenue significantly?

Through content grouping, we can find answers within our pre-defined points of analysis. We no longer have to look at individual posts and pages to find answers.

We provide the taxonomy that works for our business. Then we use this taxonomy to show how visitors reached our website through acquisition reports. We see how they performed on the site through conversion reports.

Now Google Analytics starts to think a lot more like our business. It uses our own words to describe content within a structure we define. Plus, we have the tremendous processing power of Google Analytics to handle our queries.

Bonus: Use custom dimensions to make these reports even more useful

If you were paying close attention to the data layer variables I showed earlier in the post, you will see a third variable. This third variable is the exact word count for each page. This variable was added to the data layer as I was starting to do analysis on the content groupings. I found that some analysis may become easier if I have the exact word count available in Google Analytics.

In Google Tag Manager, I set a custom dimension of Word Count using my third data layer variable. Now, I can view post topic by word count of the article in Google Analytics.

Useful? Definitely! There are many times when you need an exact number available to conduct analysis.

You can add up to 20 custom dimensions per web property in Google Analytics. It only works with the Universal Analytics version.

What type of content analysis are you going to do now?

Groupings are like a cheat-code for content marketers to take their analysis to the next level. You get to push your own data into Google Analytics. You get to use your own definitions within the tool.

There are really no limits to what you can measure. What is it going to be? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments section.

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37+ Tips and Resources For Building a Fine-Tuned Content Marketing Machine From The Ground Up

Back when I started my career in SEO, content marketing didn’t exist—at least not in the way it exists now.

We used strategies to boost traction and traffic to websites through the creation of great content—it was content marketing before the term even existed. And it worked.

I’ve carried the lessons with me ever since. And I’d love to share them all with you—everything I’ve used to successfully help hundreds of companies benefit from content marketing over the past five years.

Here are ...

The post 37+ Tips and Resources For Building a Fine-Tuned Content Marketing Machine From The Ground Up appeared first on Social.

11 Ways for Local Businesses to Get Links

Posted by Casey_Meraz

Let's face it: Local link building is hard. Even if you have the budget and resources needed to earn or build links it will take time. Having a strong link profile is essential to your website's success in search engines.

If you're new to link building and want to develop a more in-depth understanding, check out this great resource from MOZ on link building here.

In this guide we will look at 11 practical ways you can start earning links for your local business, which will make an impact on your bottom line today.

Who should care about local link building?

When I talk about local link building I don't mean that these links are for local businesses exclusively. If you're trying to boost the authority of your website, one good way is to get links from locally relevant sources. This guide is for all types of businesses who want to increase their site's link authority.

Since local business types vary from fast food restaurants, to ski rental shops, to law firms, and everything in-between, the tactics below are applicable across the spectrum.

About these links

Some of these links are harder to get than others. While it's easy to start with the low hanging fruit, you should put a plan together to go after the harder ones. These are the links your competitors won't get because they're just too darn lazy. This is how real businesses set themselves apart in the customer's eyes and the search engine's eyes and build a brand that's worth remembering. Aim for quality over quantity and don't settle for crummy links.

How do you define a good link?

I recently read an article by Eric Enge from Stonetemple that summed up what type of links you should be looking for pretty nicely. In this article he mentioned three key points to help define the type of links you're looking for. They were:

1. Links that will drive direct referral traffic
2. Links that build visibility with your target audience for your brand
3. Links that build your reputation

The link building methods I'll be covering today will achieve at least one of the goals each. I always think it's important to "think outside of the link" and the above three points make that practical. In addition to getting the link for an SEO benefit, will it actually drive relevant traffic? If so, that's a great link to chase. The same goes for links built that place you in front of your target audience and links that build your reputation.

Keeping this in mind, lets build some links!

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#1 Create controversy and get in the news

Creating a controversial story may seem hard at first glance, but it reminds me of this quote from Peter Marshall "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything." If your clients don't have any controversy or a cause to believe in, then they aren't real people.

You can't agree with 100% of the people 100% of the time and you just have to find out what that is. Some companies like Spirit Airlines seem to do this quite often, but the little guys can do this too with minimal investment.

Using this method you can get links from places like:

The Wall Street Journal, The Denver Post and other local newspapers, Lexis Nexis

Actual case study

We were recently working with an attorney who was looking to earn links at a decent scale. We proposed a scholarship contest. While scholarship links from .edus are cool, we like The Wall Street Journal and high authority news site links even more. After speaking with this client, who is a DUI attorney, we discussed how everybody talks about how destructive driving drunk is, but rarely do people admit to the habit.

From this idea, we came up with the concept of a Scholarship for Colorado students who admit to drinking and driving.

After the scholarship information was published on the site, we reached out to our local newspaper, The Denver Post, and informed them of the scholarship. From here, they went on to interview our client and write an article on the topic titled "Scholarship for Colorado students who admit to drinking and driving" that links to the scholarship page.

Once the Denver Post article was published, it was easy to get other major publications to cover the story, including The Wall Street Journal:

How you can do this

Step 1: Develop an idea that strikes a chord with people. Think about issues that are universally familiar and tend to be polarizing in some way.

Step 2: Develop the on-page asset needed to support it. In this case we opted for the scholarship.

Step 3: Once the asset is created, pitch it to a local newspaper.

Step 4: If the story is picked up by a newspaper you can then pitch it to other major publications like The Wall Street Journal. Many websites have contact forms and areas to submit a tip. Something simple like "Hey I thought you guys might find this funny" with a link to the news publication article will do the trick since it adds credibility.

Step 5: Share it on social media with groups that might be interested in the topic.

Step 6: Consider paying for some exposure on Outbrain to widen the audience.

PRO tip: Don't skimp on the content, graphics, or any step in this process. This will be fruitful if done right but will fall flat on your face if you try to take shortcuts.

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#2 Easily get contest nomination links

Almost every city whether big or small has some type of local business awards. The awards might be run by a small local newspaper with a website, the chamber of commerce, or even another organization. In addition to these "Best Of" type awards, there are also awards based on age like Top 40 Under 40 or by type of business including Best Restaurant or Best Law Firm.

The trick is to find the opportunities that are a good fit for your business and get listed. Sometimes you have to win to get mentioned and other times you just need to get nominated.

Get links from places like:

Chamber of commerce, news publications, and major publications if you're good enough :)

Getting a link from the Chamber of Commerce like the example above is very relevant as it only serves businesses within that city. It's also a plus for informed local shoppers.

How you can do it

The best way to find these potentially lucrative links is to do a Google Search. You need to start by coming up with a list of potential sources. Since these are generally city or state specific, it's a good idea to use one of these search strings:

Here are some ideas to get the wheels turning in your brain:

• "Nominate a business"+"STATE NAME" (Example: "Nominate a business"+"Colorado")
• "City Name"+"Nominate a business" (Example: "Los Angeles"+"Nominate a business")
• "best of STATE or CITY"+"nominate" (Example: "best of Colorado"+"nominate")
• "best BUSINESS TYPE"+"nominate"+"city" (Example: "best restaurant"+"nominate"+"denver")
• "AGE under AGE"+"GEO MODIFIER" (Example: "30 under 30"+"Denver")
• "nominate"+"young entrepreneur" (Example: "nominate"+"young entrepreneur)

Once you have curated a list of awards you want to try to apply for you can then send your pitch to each of these websites directly. Typically they have nomination forms that you would fill out or a certain procedure. If you can't find out how, don't be afraid to ask!

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#3 Get eco-friendly links

Is your business green? Does it operate according to low energy standards or are you at least on track to be green? Why not help out the environment and get a link out of it as well? Now while you probably won't show up on Newsweek's America's Greenest Companies 2014 for doing this, there are a lot of offline benefits to being green as well. I already mentioned saving the environment, but did you realize there are eco-friendly shoppers? Some shoppers do the majority of their business with companies that are eco-friendly and I suspect this will just continue to soar.

Get links from places like:

Mostly business directories and local news organizations who promote green businesses.

How you can do it

With this industry there are some low hanging fruits, but just like all link building, you should be smart about your approach. While it might be tempting to go out and get a link on a directory, I would personally spend time scrutinizing it to make sure it's a strong website that's human-edited and controlled. If you don't find it reputable, nobody else will (including Google). That's why it's best to focus on local opportunities such as your local newspaper or community directory.

Make sure to familiarize yourself with the Green Terminology here. Once you have a good idea of what you're looking for, you can conduct some easy searches such as the ones below to find directories. Again, please be sure to scrutinize them.

Search for directories by using search phrases like:

• Eco-friendly business directory
• Green business directories

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#4 Sponsor a meetup group

While of course we're talking about links here, I always like to see the other side of a link and the actual benefit it will give you. Did you know you can sponsor meetup groups and get a link as well as get in front of your potential customers?

Meetup.com is a powerhouse website that connects like minded groups of people together through events they call meetups. If you have a good grasp of your target audience and you know where they hang out, you can get in front of them more easily.

For example, let's say that you're a bike store. Would it make sense to sponsor a local meetup biking club? Yes!

How you can do it

Sponsoring a meetup group does require the group owner to accept your sponsorship and terms. Your goal however is to get your business name, logo, discount, and link in the ad as shown in the example. If you're ambitious and a local store you could ask to have your NAP displayed as well for Local SEO purposes.

Step 1: Start by determining what type of groups might appeal to your audience. I have included some tricky examples below:

• Attorneys - Maybe sponsoring a cycling- or driving-based meetup with the safety approach
• Doctors - Sponsor a healthy living meetup
• Airsoft or Paintball Store - Sponsor a singles group by offering an event
• Construction - Sponsor a charity group or a new homeowners' group

That's enough to get the wheels turning. Write these ideas down and proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Turn to Google to make your search easier! Use the search strings below to only search the meetup.com website with the keywords you're looking for:

site:meetup.com state+keyword or site:meetup.com city+keyword

Step 3: Click through the results and find a meetup group that seems to fit the bill.

Step 4: Show up to the next scheduled local meetup group. Network. Meet the group owner and see if they're seeking sponsorship's.

Step 5: Negotiate and get your site up!

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#5 Host a community event

If you want to do event link building check out my local event link building post here or Kane Jamison's event link post here. While those posts go more into how you can really promote an event and build some awesome local links, I want to talk specifically about how you can get listed on your city's website by hosting a community event. The thing I like most about events is that you get to give back to your community and help people. Not even a link feels as good as that.

The only real requirements for this one is that you host an event where the entire community is invited and get a blessing from the town. In the example below you can see how a church in my town of Parker, Colorado was able to get a link by hosting an Easter Egg Hunt.

So not only are they getting exposure from people in their town (their target audience), they're getting the link and mentions here too. If the event was hosted at your office or business location, then you can get the added superior benefit of your NAP listed on their website!

If it's a county-wide event, you can get listed on the county website and if the event is public safety you might be able to get the Fire Department and Police Departments on board as well. Plus this can come with the added benefit of news coverage.

Get links from places like:

Your city's website and major community news sources

How you can do it

The first thing you need to do is figure out what type of event you want to host. Depending on the size of your town and the size of the event, it can be a big deal. I'm a bit of a event fanatic so for me it comes easy. Don't be afraid to start small though as long as you're creating and providing a productive resource for your community.

Some potential ideas include:

• Trash Pickup Day - Host a trash pickup day where the meeting place is your business or you sponsor the bags.
• Toy Drop off for Needy Kids - Host a toy drive or drop off for kids in need.
• Seminar - Host a seminar in your area of expertise that will be the most beneficial to residents. If you like this idea then also try starting a meetup group (see #4 above).

Step 1: Figure out the event type.

Step 2: Get the town on board with the idea and schedule a date at least 60 days out.

Step 3: Create the details page on your website with all pertinent event details.

Step 4: Make sure it goes up on the town's website with your company event page linked.

Step 5: Promote the heck out of it using the event promotion guide here.

Pro tip 1: Invite local press to your event to cover it. Be sure to meet and greet them and get to know them. More on this later.

Pro tip 2: Invite the local Boy Scouts or other community organizations as well. If their name is attached to the event, you might get more exposure and more link opportunities.

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#6 Sponsor or donate to a local club or organization

Sponsorship links can be a slippery slope, but there's also a place for them. Over the years I have given back to a number of causes I support and have been an active member in charities and nonprofit organizations. Chances are you or someone you know is a part of one right now.

There are a lot of clubs in almost any community. Have you ever heard of the Rotary Club, Kiwanis, Lions Club, etc. These are commonly found in many communities and they typically have state, district, or chapter websites.

Below is a quick example I pulled from the Los Angeles Rotary Club sponsors webpage:

But don't stop there. While the major clubs are popular, there are also a lot of other potential sponsorship causes and organizations. This is commonly touched on so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but here are some easy search stings you can use to find some opportunities.

• "city inurl:sponsors" (Example: Los Angeles inurl:sponsors)
• "city inurl:sponsor" (Example: Los Angeles inurl:sponsor)
• "city intitle:sponsors" (Example: Los Angeles intitle:sponsors)
• keyword donations (Example: Safety donations)

After you have explored these opportunities simply reach out to the organizers and see what type of commitment they're looking for.

Pro tip: Don't be afraid to promote your sponsorship. If you're giving to a good cause, let the community know!

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#7 Student, teacher, and alumni discounts

If you've done link building research you may have heard of the university discount link building where you can offer a discount to the students and faculty of a university. That has a place and it might be a good place for local links if you have a university nearby. But did you realize there are other student discount opportunities as well?

Typically when I look for opportunities locally I open my eyes a little wider and look for other opportunities like:

1. K-12 Schools. These can be goldmines and aren't really talked about much.
2. Organization discounts. Organizations have students too. Take the Colorado Symphony for example.
3. Alumni discounts. Sometimes these organizations also offer alumni listings for free.

Get links from places like:

Organizations, schools, K-12 schools, educational websites

How you can do it

This is another scenario where we will turn to Google and seek opportunities:

• site:.org "student discounts" - Looks for organizations that offer student discounts
• site:.org "high school"+"student Discount" - Checks for offers available to high school students
• site:.edu "staff discounts" - Searches .edu domains for staff discounts (colleges and universities)
• site:.edu "student discounts" - Searches .edu domains for student discounts (colleges and universities)

Pro tip: Don't be afraid to add geo modifiers. Remember that anything in "" will search exactly so plurals should be searched separately.

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#8 Create and promote a local resource

So you want to send good local link signals and showcase you're the expert of a local area? What better way than to create a community resource page on your website? Not only will it attract potential links with the proper marketing, it's also going to show that you're the expert in your area.

The good thing about creating a local resource is that you or the local operator running that location probably already has a good idea about the city in general. Even if they're not the most familiar with the area, some research can solve that.

Get links from places like:

Hotels, travel websites, news organizations

How you can do it

Start by coming up with a list of ideas. Locally-based ideas can vary greatly. Here are a few to helps the mice turn the wheel:

• Best of Local Guides - Best restaurants in the city or county, top bars, top microbreweries (I like beer, OK), top city attractions, top things for singles, top things for families, a perfect day trip for families, etc.
• Local Calendar Creation - Create a local calendar of popular events by topic. High school football calendars, movie premiere dates, HOA meetings, and more.

Once you have the idea, you can move onto the creation of the asset. Notice my use of the word asset. If I'm going to spend the time to create this piece, I want to make sure it's a linkable asset. That means that it should be substantial and also look great. If the content is weak, you're going to get a weak appeal.

Once you have built your guide, the real key is promoting it and getting the exposure you need. Make sure to share it with relevant audiences such as Facebook and Google Plus groups. If there are town groups such as "You know you grew up in CITY, when..." those might be a good place to promote your resource.

Figure out where your community members hang out and post it there. Sometimes even city or town run pages will be willing to post or promote your piece. This is just another reason why you need to create a quality piece of content and not just do the bare minimum.

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#9 Get manufacturer and wholesaler links

This is an easy one that is often overlooked by small businesses. If you operate a retail business or sell a product that somebody else manufactures, then you have a link opportunity. Many product manufacturers want to show their customers where to buy their products. This might be a store locator or it could just be an authorized reseller list. Either way you need to take advantage of it. This is an opportunity that even local businesses can take advantage of quickly.

One of the reasons we have extensive client intake forms is to address this issue. A lot of times clients will say that they're listed without actually knowing. It's best to find out for yourself by getting a complete list of all manufacturers they represent. If they have a website you can get a link.

Get links from places like:

Larger manufacturing companies

How you can do it

Even small stores might represent products from 100+ different manufacturers. Even if they don't buy manufacturer direct they can still get a link from the manufacturer just by asking.

Step 1: Create a list of all of the brands the client carries and whether they buy direct or from a wholesaler.

Step 2: Visit each manufacturer and distributor website. Find out if they have a store locator or somewhere where they list where you can buy their products.

Step 3: Reach out to those that do from a company email address including all pertinent information (include NAP!) and the link to your website or store location.

Step 4: For those who don't list this information, outreach to them and ask them if they are willing to set it up. After all it will only help you both sell more products.

Pro tip: Some websites will only display your Name, Address, Phone Number. But if they don't link to you don't be afraid to ask. A lot of times they can make the change and add your link.

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#10 Build relationships with local influencers

If you want to earn links that will really set you apart from the rest of the herd, you need to start thinking about building actual relationships with influencers. Finding influencers and getting connected can be hard; you have to be real while doing it. These people can range from your local competition, to politicians, to journalists. Finding and connecting with them requires some work, but it's worth the payoff.

Get links from places like:

Niche publications, your competition's website, local news media, government websites

How you can do it

The reality is, while some of this research and networking can be done online, at some point, you're going to have to get out of your office and interact with real humans!

For our example, let's look at how we might go about forming a relationship with a member of the local media. First off you will want to find a list of press associations in your area. This might be city based or state based. The easiest way to look for these is just to search for them in Google by typing in your state name + press association or press organization.

Once you have the list of the organization(s) you want to work with, check out their membership fees but more importantly their events and conferences. These are the real goldmines. Many of these organizations have an annual conference or event that you can attend. This is where you can usually expect to meet the people with the most connections. It's important to speak with them in person, exchange contact information, and express your willingness to contribute. If you have an intriguing idea for a specific writer, for example, someone who always writes about tech news, you may be able to pitch a problem you see in your industry that exposes consumers. Your job is to figure out what interests them and offer to help in any way.

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#11 Leverage business relationships

In many cases small businesses may already have complementary businesses that might be willing to give a link to your website. In fact, it might make sense from a referral standpoint too. If you use or refer your business to another type of business this is a great opportunity.

Get links from places like:

Other business websites

How you can do this

Getting these opportunities are as easy as curating the list and doing the outreach. Here are some examples for different business types:

• Attorneys can get links from: Process servers, investigators, and other services they refer business to
• Mortgage Brokers can link to recommended realtors and vice-versa
• Doctors can get links from schools (emergency clinic references), insurance companies, and other doctors.

Another way to go about this is to approach like-minded companies that offer services you don't and you don't plan on offering. For example if you're a greeting card store you might be able to get links from gift stores.

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Conclusion

Although good link building takes time, thought, and a good amount of effort, it's easy enough that anyone can do it. With so many different options and ways you can earn links, this is just a small sample that you can use to start gaining new ones today.

Please feel free to share your favorite link building tips. The more the better!

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