Google has stopped using authorship completely, even for in-depth articles

Authorship is now officially and completely dead. Gary Illyes from Google said authorship is not used at all at Google anymore.

The post Google has stopped using authorship completely, even for in-depth articles appeared first on Search Engine Land.



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

No, SEO isn't “search engine manipulation” that Google will ban you for

In a legal statement, Google introduces the term "search engine manipulation" -- but think of it as a synonym for spam, not SEO.

The post No, SEO isn't “search engine manipulation” that Google will ban you for appeared first on Search Engine Land.



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

On-Page SEO 101: Tips for Keyword Optimizing the Most Critical Parts of Your Website

SEO can sometimes feel like it stands for "Something Extremely Obscure."

As marketers, we're responsible for staying on top of what can feel like endless Google algorithm updates. And if we fail to do so, we run the risk of not showing up in search for important target keywords.

But keeping pace with all of those changes isn't easy. Thankfully, when it comes to achieving SEO success on your website, there's one rule of thumb that remains a tried-and-tested technique: optimizing your website with relevant and targeted keywords.

By having a well-optimized site, you'll start to see results like improved visitor quality, higher conversion rates, and in the end: more closed customers.

In this article, I'm going to cover how to add keywords to your website once you've already completed your keyword research. So before you dive into this post, be sure to read this awesome blog post on how to do keyword research.

Got your keywords ready? Alright. Read on to learn what on-page SEO is, where to add those keywords to your website, and how to avoid search penalties. 

What is On-Page SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about creating content, optimizing it, and promoting it. When we talk about SEO, we often talk about "on-page SEO" and "off-page SEO."

What's the difference? In short:

• On-Page SEO is what a site "says to a search engine."


• Off-Page SEO is what "other sites say" about a site.

On-page SEO, or "saying something to a search engine," means optimizing individual webpages so that they rank higher on search engine results pages. The term covers both the content itself, as well as the HTML source code -- both of which can be optimized for search.

Off-page SEO, on the other hand, refers to external ranking signals like links.

Improving your on-page SEO can help your inbound marketing efforts immensely by helping you attract the right visitors to your website. You want to optimize your pages for search engines so they can understand who you are, what you do, and what you're writing about. Again, when you improve your on-page SEO, you'll help increase the organic rank of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs).

(HubSpot customers: Click here to learn how to use HubSpot's on-page SEO tool, which is built right into the software.)

On-Page SEO Tips to Help Your Webpages Rank Better in Search

1) Start with an SEO audit of your website. 

Every time you add new site content, you'll want to create that content with the specific keywords you're targeting (1–2 per individual webpage) in mind. But if you already have a bunch of webpages published, then your first step will be performing an SEO audit on your current website.

An SEO audit will give you an idea of how SEO-friendly your website is overall. That way, you can update and optimize your current content for search starting with your highest-traffic webpages. The audit will also help surface any other issues you may have, like duplicate content, so you can address them immediately and start ranking better in search. 

Watch this quick video series to learn how to perform an SEO site audit in detail. It'll cover how to check whether your site is being blocked by search engines, make sure your XML sitemap is working, monitor and improve site performance, spot and remove internal duplicate content, and check your site's popularity and trustworthiness.

In short, here's what you'll need to do:

1. Export all of your site pages into an Excel spreadsheet.


2. Sort by the most frequently visited pages. (Learn how to sort in Excel here.)


3. Decide which keyword category each one falls into, and add that category into a column beside the page name.


4. Add another column in your spreadsheet to add more specific keywords that you want to add to that page. Keep in mind that they must be relevant to the content on that page, as well as terms your target audience would be searching for.

Here's an example of what this might look like:

Once you've completed this process for all of your pages (or, if you have a ton of pages, at least the most important ones), then you can jump in to your site to start adding keywords.

Here are a few other helpful resources for performing SEO audits:

• Moz: "How to Perform the World's Greatest SEO Audit"


• Search Engine Journal: "How to Perform Your First SEO Audit"


• Search Engine Land: "How To Do Your Own 5-Minute SEO Audit"

2) Add keywords (naturally) to 5 critical places on your website.

In order to optimize your pages for keywords, you'll need to, well ... include those keywords on your site. But not every placement of a keyword is equal: There are certain places on your website that are more optimal than others for on-page SEO.

Here's a list of some of the most important places to optimize for your chosen keywords on your site:

• Titles


• Descriptions


• Headings & Content


• Images Titles & Alt Text


• URLs

If you haven't optimized these sections of your site in the past, you have some work to do -- but it's up-front work that will pay off big time in the long term. To get the most bang for your buck, start with the pages that get the most traffic. Then, as you create more pages in the future, be sure to optimize as you go.

(HubSpot customers: Click here to learn how to figure out which webpages are getting the most traffic using the "Sources" report.) 

Titles

Titles are the HTML element used to describe the topic of a webpage. You'll find them in the title of a search engine result page (as shown below), and in the top bar of an internet browser.

Titles have a direct impact on both searcher clickthrough rates (CTRs) and search rankings. To make your title both search-friendly and click-friendly:

• Try to keep it below about 65 characters so it doesn't get cut off on search engine results pages. (Technically, Google measures by pixel width, not character count. It recently increased the pixel width for organic search results to about 600 pixels from 500 pixels, which is approximately 65 characters.)


• Include one of your target keywords or phrases so it's easier for searchers to identify that your results are relevant to other query -- and position these keywords toward the front of the title to lower the risk of it getting cut off on SERPs.

Descriptions

Descriptions, also known as meta descriptions, are shown in search results below the title and URL, as shown below.

Descriptions can help increase CTR, but nowadays, they actually don't have a direct impact on rankings. They're there for humans, not search engine crawlers, and you should use them to tell searchers why they should click on your result. Use one of your target keywords or phrases in your meta description so they know your content is relevant to their query, but make it attractive to the viewer, too.

Bonus: You can use this cool tool from Dejan SEO to preview what your search result would look like before deciding which description to use.

Headings & Content

It's important to use your keywords in your headings and content, as visitors are much more likely to stay on a page if they can see the terms they had searched for on it. Using keywords in your content is used by Google as a ranking factor, so doing this can help improve your SERP placement.

Just make sure you're using these keywords naturally, since Google has gotten better and better at being able to tell when people are keyword-stuffing their content. Whenever you create content, focus on what matters to your audience, not how many times you can include a keyword or keyword phrase in that content. If you do that, you'll usually find you naturally optimize for important keywords.

While it's fine to use keywords in multiple locations on your site, don't overdo it or Google will demote your webpages in search results. (And hey, no one wants to read content like that, anyway.)

Image Alt Text & Titles

You can also look at including keywords in a natural way in your image alt text and titles. Both alt text and titles are attributes that can be added to an image tag in HTML. Here's what a complete image tag might look like:

alt="image-description" title="image tooltip"/>

An image's alt text tells search engine crawlers what an image is about, which helps it be found in search. It'll display inside the image container when an image can't be found, and it also improves accessibility for people with poor vision using screen readers.

An image title tag, on the other hand, is shown when a user hovers their mouse over the element -- kind of like a "pop-up." It won't be shown to the user when an image can't be displayed.

(HubSpot customers: Click here to learn how to add alt text and title text to your images in HubSpot.)

Adding keywords to these image attributes may seem minor, and truthfully, it isn't going to impact your search rankings as much as other things on this list. But trust us, it's worth the extra minute (if that) it takes to change the name from "IMG23940" to something accurate and descriptive. 

For example, if you were to write alt text for the image below: 

• Bad: alt=""


• Better: alt="puppies"


• Best: alt="golden-retriever-puppies-in-basket"


• Avoid: alt="puppy-dog-baby-dog-pup-pups-puppies-doggies-litter-retriever-labrador-wolfhound-setter-pointer-basket-wicker-basket-box-container-straw-grass-green-nature"

URLs

It's a good idea to include keywords in your URL if they accurately describe the page contents. This is particularly important for businesses that do a lot of blogging -- there's a huge opportunity to optimize your URLs on every post you publish, as every post lives on its own unique URL.

But beware: Search engines will penalize exact match domains that are keyword stuffed. So if you're thinking of starting up arizonerealestaterealtorsinarizona.com, think again. Keep it to businessname.com/topic-topic, and you should be fine.

As always, keep reader-friendliness in mind when you're creating your URLs. Overall, your URLs should make sense to humans and give them a good sense of where in your website they've landed. You should also separate words with hyphens and remove extra words (like "a" and "the") in the page part of the URL slug.

3) Learn to avoid search penalties.

There are a couple of things you should also avoid when optimizing your site for keywords, so be careful of the following sketchy SEO practices some people (mind-bogglingly) still use.

Never hide keywords.

This includes using the same color background as you do for the text, hiding them behind images, or hiding them off to the side using CSS. (I know, I can't believe I have to say it.) While this isn't as easy to catch as other black hat tactics, today's more sophisticated search engines can easily find instances of hidden keywords -- and it can result in serious search penalties.

Avoid keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing means repeating keywords over and over again in the text, whether it's in titles, headings, descriptions, page content, URLs, or even at the bottom of a webpage in very small text. Basically, when it looks like keywords have been added unnecessarily onto a webpage, it's probably keyword stuffed.

Keyword stuffing is the oldest trick in the book when it comes to SEO -- and nowadays, search engines have been developed specifically to detect it. Not only does it look spammy, but it's not approved by search engines and will result in penalties. 

Don't force keywords where they don't belong.

This isn't quite the same as stuffing a lot of keywords into a post. This is more about not forcing a keyword in -- even if it's just one -- if it doesn't belong, contextually speaking. If you can't figure out a place to put a keyword in a piece of content, it's often a sign the content isn't that well-aligned with what your personas need, anyway.

Remember, SEO is not about incorporating as many keywords as possible. It's much more about picking content topics relevant to your target audience.

4) Promote a good user experience.

The most important thing to consider is your visitor's user experience. While optimizing your website for an algorithm sounds purely scientific, remember that the goal of search engines is the deliver the best experience possible to their end-users: searchers. If you keep that goal in mind with your SEO strategy, you'll be more likely to make good choices. Think about humans first and search engines second, and you'll be alright.

We know you're a busy marketer with a lot of things on your plate. SEO need not fall to the bottom of your priority list because of lack of knowledge -- or, worse, fear you're doing it wrong. We hope this was a helpful starting-off point for your on-page SEO efforts. Happy optimizing! 

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 
                                   

LocalSEOGuide.com 2.0 Creative Brief

Q: Why Did We Update The Site?

A: Because The Old Site Sucked, Right?

Well, that's not completely the case, although I had received my fair share of requests (mostly from Pakistan for some reason) to redesign the old site over the years.

Here's the ready-for-Medium explanation for the ten of you who care:

I launched LSG.com in 2007 after working as an SEO consultant for a year without a site. I used to love to say to prospects “Real SEOs don't need a website…”. I had my cousin's wife, who did package design for razors, design it. The design looked like it had been put together in about ten minutes which seemed right for a personal blog about something as geeky as SEO. Over the years I had come to look at that anti-design as an asset. Instead of the typical clip-art, marketing-speak seen on most agency sites (you know who you are), LocalSEOGuide.com made it pretty clear that I was just some guy with a blog who seemed to know a bit about SEO and was so busy cranking up the traffic for clients I didn't have time to design a damn website. I think this worked in my favor most of the time. Not hard when you are competing against stock photos & buzzwords.

But things have changed since those halcyon days when someone would fly across the country to meet me and cut me a huge check over lunch simply because I ranked #1 for “local SEO” and “must know what I am doing”. Over the past few years Local SEO Guide has grown from just me cranking out audits and advising businesses on strategy to a team of people who crank out audits and advise businesses on strategy. And it was time that this site reflect that as well as make it clearer to potential clients what exactly it is that we do.

Now that the site is live, I thought it would fun to share part of the creative brief we put together to kick off the project. I'd be curious to hear in the comments if you think we got it right.

LocalSEOGuide.com 2.0 Creative Brief

1. Project Goals
   
   – Transition LocalSEOGuide.com (LSG.com) from a personal SEO blog to a SEO company website.
   
   – LSG.com is a 8-yr-old blog on SEO and local search written by Andrew Shotland, a SEO consultant and B-list SEO celebrity.  Currently the blog is under-optimized to convert readers/visitors into client leads and the UI does not easily accommodate new features and services.  It also could use an updated look.




2. Brand Confusion
   
   Because our brand is “Local” we are probably missing out on some non-Local business (e.g. ecommerce sites, media sites, etc.).  About 50% of our clients are non-local, including some of the bigger sites on the Web such as oDesk.com/Elance.com, Coupons.com, RottenTomatoes.com, SwimOutlet.com, Slacker.com, etc.  While we don't want to dilute the “Local” part, we'd like to make it clearer that we do “Enterprise” SEO.




3. Authenticity
   
   When we ask potential clients why they contacted us via the blog, we often hear something like “you seem authentic”, “you don't seem like your trying to bullshit me”, etc.  We interpret this partially as our website doesn't look like a service marketing website such as (Crap SEO Company Website Redacted) or (Crap SEO Company Website Redacted)It's important that the new design/UI maintain that sense of authenticity.  It needs to feel like we are doing this out of garage (a very excellent garage of course), while at the same time making visitors more aware of our different services and improving conversion.We think a lot of this can be accomplished via language and simplicity of design.




4. Target Audience
   
   – Other SEOs: They share our posts and link to us. They may be our primary target.
   
   – Multi-Location & Single Location businesses looking for “Local SEO” help
   
   – Agencies looking for SEO experts to help with Local SEO
   
   – CEOs, CMOs and PMs looking for “Enterprise” SEO help




5. Key Messages
   
   The following are effective messages we communicate during initial sales calls. We'd like them to come through via the design either explicitly or implicitly:
   
   – We understand your pain. We used to run a business that required SEO (InsiderPages.com) and we found it difficult. We started LSG to help people avoid the stress and anxiety I went through having to figure it out on the job.
   
   – Education & Trust. We give a lot of info away for free. We know you need to trust us before you hire us.
   
   – Experience. We have been doing this for a long time and we have seen a lot of bizarre shit in the SERPs. This will help us help you.

Here's The First Wireframe I Created. It Ripped Off Slack's Home Page UI Which All The Hipsters Were (& Still Are) Doing:

I still love it…

 

The post LocalSEOGuide.com 2.0 Creative Brief appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

Trying to Find a Job? 8 Little Ways to Make Your Job Search a Whole Lot Easier

The average job search is a peculiar paradox. There may be 2,278 available positions for your chosen field, but as you scroll through pages and pages of listings, you're lucky if two stand out.

Perhaps you're a recent college graduate searching for the needle in the haystack of three- to five-year experience jobs. Just as frustrating, you could be a senior employee wondering if any position out there matches your unique mix of skills. Either way, it doesn't take long before you start to feel like the Goldilocks of job searching.

So how do you know if you're being too picky? In my own job searching, I've tried two opposite methods:

1. Blanketing hundreds of postings with the same resume.


2. Strategically focusing on a dream list of companies.

But for the sake of full transparency, the former option was fueled by the motivation to get off of my parents' couch as quickly as possible.

If you've read any amount of job search advice on the internet, you probably know which of these two methods yielded the best results. However, there are plenty of other factors beyond your resume-sending habits that go into finding the perfect position and ensuring you get the call back. Below, I've gathered some of the top tips to score a job without all the added stress that comes along with the search.

Trying to Find a Job? 8 Little Ways to Simplify Your Search 

1) Customize your web presence.

It should go without saying, but if you aren't customizing your resume, cover letter, and portfolio for the specific job you're applying to, you probably won't get the interviews you're hoping for.

While a full resume checklist warrants a blog post of its own, one tip I will highlight is taking the time to match the wording of your resume and cover letter to the position you're applying to. In the world of marketing, jargon abounds. Whether it's content management or landing page optimization, talk about your skills in a way that a first-round recruiter -- or even a computer -- will understand.

Let's take a look at the listing for a blogging position on our content team as an example (and did I mention, we're hiring?):

Having found this promising job listing, here's how you might begin customizing your application:

• Create word cloud. As a first check, use a word cloud generator to extract the terms that are used most in the job description. For example, here's what terms stand out in the blogger listing:

• Scan the job description for technical terms you can repeat in your own writing. This doesn't mean mentioning "high-impact experiments" if you've never actually tested content distribution or format. But it would be wise to replace "designs hero images" on your resume with "creates multimedia assets" to make the connection clear for a recruiter.


• Identify themes between the resonsibilities and qualifications. If the job description repeats a desired quality, you can assume it's a pet rock of the team. For example, the posting stresses the importance of experimentation. Therefore, you should replace or refine the anecdotes of your cover letter to highlight this quality.


• Take notice of culture clues. Sentiments of collaboration and teamwork appear multiple times in this job posting. As you aim to show you have this quality, refer to the company's culture code to inform your language choice.

Beyond tweaking your resume and cover letter for the specific company and role, make sure all instances of your name on the internet -- including your LinkedIn profile, Twitter, Instagram, published clips, and portfolio -- tell a cohesive story. Remember, every aspect of your online presence should scream, "I'm perfect for this job!" before you pick up the phone for your first screening call.

2) Don't limit yourself to formal applications.

"It's not what you know, but who you know." No matter how many times I hear this quote, it still makes my blood boil. In the back of my mind, I hear my post-grad self wine: "But I don't know anyone. How am I supposed to get a job then?"

Even if that saying is true, I would now push back on my former self with a little tough love: If you don't know the right people, make the connections.

No matter what what stage of your career you're in, it won't hurt to reach out to friends, alumni, and former colleagues. Even if you don't know the right person, they might. And that referral can make all the difference. While employee referrals make up only 7% of applications, Jobvite estimates they account for 40% of all hires.

Opt for targeted, personalized emails as opposed to a single spammy message to your entire address book. For an example, take a look at this inquiry email I might send to a former co-worker for potential leads:

You'll notice that besides attaching my resume, I've shorted my recent experience to a few quick bullet points in the body of the message to make it as easy as possible to scan. I've also included ideal job titles and companies, while of course, thanking them graciously for their support.

As frightening as it may be, emailing second connections or companies of interest without job listings is not out of the question ... as long as you do it in the right way. There's a big difference between a cold email and a genuine, personalized message. Many of my best leads came out of direct messages to content directors, admiring a specific aspect of their work and asking for their creative expertise over a cup of coffee. For those who know me be best, they'll confirm it's completely out of my introverted, Midwestern-nice comfort zone to ever do this. But in the end, your momentary discomfort could pay off tremendously.

3) Reflect on your why.

Most interview questions never change. Why are you interested in this position? What are your top strengths and weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in five years?

Yet, no matter how many interviews you've had, it's still easy to stumble through these questions. According to Charles Duhigg, building mental models and telling yourself stories of potential situations can help control how you think. What could be more helpful in an interview than being able to control your racing mind?

Too often, we wait until the night before an interview (or even the 30 minutes before) to reflect on why we want that particular position and how we'll answer the questions we know are coming.

Instead, move this process to the top of your job search to-do list. Don't settle with just knowing you want a position as a content marketer or project manager. Consider the "why" and write it out. From my experience, the more I wrote out my reflections to common interview questions, the more confident I felt in each of my interviews.

4) Be specific in your search.

At this point, you've compiled a list of dream companies and scoured their individual careers pages. Likely, you'll still want to spend some time on job boards to complete your search.

If you're anything like me, clicking through pages upon pages of job links is not your ideal pastime. In the best interest of your sanity, prioritize your searching on niche job sites. If a company has taken the time (and often, money) to post a position on a niche site as opposed to simply Indeed.com, they are serious about finding the perfect fit. From my experience, companies that prioritize the interview experience also value things like career development, people operations, company culture, and management training later on.

Not sure where to start? Sales Gravy is great for sales jobs, while JournalismJobs.com and Mediabistro are perfect for writers. Be sure to check out Inbound.org for marketing positions.

To stay on top of new listings, most job boards allow you to set up instant alerts that'll immediately email you when a position is posted with specific keywords in your chosen area. Twitter is another option for monitoring job listings in real time. Get yourself in the habit of searching for specific keywords like "marketing job Boston" or "content director." As you find specific companies or job sites tweeting about positions regularly, you can add them to a public or private Twitter List to make monitoring easier.

Of course, don't forget to clean up your profile with a nice headshot, creative bio, and link to your porfolio -- that way, when you find the perfect job listing tweet you're ready to start the conversation.

5) Think about timing.

With a stroke of luck, perhaps you do find the perfect job in your endless scrolling through job listings. So, do you stop everything and submit the application as quickly as possible? Besides, you don't want someone else to snatch the position before you do ...

Not so fast. When you find the listing for your dream job, here's might advice: don't apply for it. At least not until you think about your timing.

According to a study by Bright.com, applicants that apply on a Monday are most likely to advance in the hiring process. In fact, nearly one in three job seekers who applied on a Monday moved forward successfully in the hiring process.

Sound like a myth? Considering a separate study by SmartRecruiters found that most applications are submitted on a Tuesday, there could be some truth to the early bird gets the worm philosophy for job searching. The data shows that 18.5% of candidates apply on Tuesday, with 21.5% of hiring decisions also being made on a Tuesday. Therefore, use the weekend to get your cover letter and resume in line. Then, be ready to submit your application before the emails flood the recruiter's inbox on Tuesday afternoon.

6) Stay organized.

While it's nearly impossible to know the average number of applications an individual job seeker fills out before they get an offer, we do know that, on average, 118 people apply for any given job.

There's a lot of factors that affect how long your search will last: your experience level, your network, the time of year, the demand for your skill set in your geographic area. No matter what, you'll probably fill out more applications than you can remember. Therefore, it's absolutely crucial that you stay organized.

Keep an organized spreadsheet with more information than you think you'll need. There are some obvious inclusions, such as the title of the position, the location, the type of company, etc. But don't forget to include the date you applied, who you included as your references, and the name and email of the hiring manager. That way, when your former boss reaches out to you because of a reference, you'll know exactly how many times you gave out their contact information.

Good news here: We have a job application tracking template ready for you to use as a part of our Interview Kit for Job Seekers. As you proceed through the job search process, use this Google Sheet to keep track of where you are in the interview process with each company and manage all of those new names like a pro (Believe me: I've messed up someone's name in a job interview. It's not fun).

7) Go the extra mile.

What if I told you that your resume doesn't matter? You'd probably question me to some degree. Of course, your resume serves the very important purpose of telling a hiring manager where you've been and what you've done. However, when it comes to making a impression, there is something much more important than a list of bullet points: proof.

Show, don't tell. It's nothing new. In his recent Medium article, writer Raghav Haran spoke of the importance of this through the concept of a "pre-interview project." And not nearly as many people are taking advantage of this opportunity as they should.

The idea is to show your potential employer that you can do the job before you get the job, and often before you even talk to a hiring manager. For a salesperson, that might be reaching out to prospects and introducing them to the team. For a marketer, you could replace the traditional cover letter with a sample campaign, complete with an ebook, social images, and promotional blog post.

The trick is, do the project before they ask. Especially for creative jobs, it's normal for hiring managers to ask final-round applicants to write a blog post or draft a creative brief. But to really stand out, show that you are proactive about solving problems.

8) Don't obsess.

There is a behavioral pattern I seem to follow whenever I'm applying for jobs. 90% of the time, I'm my usual conscientious, rational self. I thoughtfully sort through job listings, take breaks, consider my cover letters word-by-word.

The other 10% of the time, I'm a chaotic mess. Suddenly it hits me how much I need a job and how much I need one right now. In a frenzy of panic, I binge apply. In a single night, I'll power through 30+ typo-ridden applications until I'm too tired to function.

From someone who's fallen prey to this lie more times than I'd like to admit, don't panic. If you're truly being thoughtful about which positions you are applying for, there's a limit to how many you can apply to in a single day, or even a week.

Instead, take your time and form a strategy for each company on your dream list. The irony of obsessing over the job application process is you'll bring yourself to burnout before you even start training for your new position. Don't treat applying for jobs like it's your full-time time job -- it's emotionally exhausting in a way I hope your actual job never is.

No matter who you are, self-promotion is draining and rejection is inevitable. The truth of the matter is, applications can't fill a forty hour week. Keep your expectations reasonable and give yourself adequate breaks to rest, spend time with people, and stretch your creativity. Your future employer will thank you for it.

Unsure if now's the time to start the job search? Take our career development quiz to learn how to accomplish your professional goals.

The role of technical SEO is “makeup?” Really?

In a response to a column published earlier this week about the place of technical SEO, contributor Patrick Hathaway argues that technical SEO is much more than a "nice to have" feature.

The post The role of technical SEO is “makeup?” Really? appeared first on Search Engine Land.



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Why We Only Accept 1 Out of Every 10 Guest Blog Pitches

Posted by BopDesign

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

[Estimated read time: 6 minutes]

We've been pitched a blog post about hoverboards.

While hoverboards are pretty cool and I'd like to own one, our business and our blog have absolutely nothing to do with hoverboards.

Why did we get pitched a post about hoverboards? Most likely because the person pitching the post saw we have a decent domain authority and they wanted to get a piece of it by getting a backlink from us. I'm sure their blog post on hoverboards would have been very interesting, but it likely would have caused our audience of B2B marketing professionals to scratch their heads in confusion.

We know who we are, and who we are not

We are a boutique digital marketing firm that focuses on creating websites and providing content marketing services.

Writing about anything else doesn't provide value for our brand.

Over the past eight years, we've built up the blog on our website writing (mostly) weekly posts about all aspects of web design and digital marketing. This blogging strategy has enabled us to add two to four new blog posts to our website each month. Our main goal has always been to provide our clients and prospects with helpful, actionable information that helps them do their jobs better or aids them in making a decision about digital marketing.

Potential clients get helpful tips and can do their jobs better.

We get great content that may help us rank better and attract more potential clients.

We hate rejection, too

While we love adding insightful information to our blog, we hate having to reject guest post submissions.

Below is an actual pitch we received (sender's information not included to protect their privacy).

Any smart website owner should be excited to get a guest post pitch. Not only is it flattering (you really like us and want to write for us?), but you get free, hopefully useful content for your website. You can use someone else's writing to drive traffic to your website.

It's not us; it's you

So, why the heck do we end up rejecting nine out of ten pitches we receive?

Simply stated, many of the guest post pitches we receive "aren't a good fit," which can mean a variety of things.

Here are the top reasons we reject a guest blog (and why you should, too):

• The topic is irrelevant


• The company pitching the blog isn't related to our industry


• The writing is terrible


• The blog is tailored to the wrong audience (B2C vs B2B or CTO vs CMO)


• The website they want us to link to is sketchy


• We've published a blog post from them recently


• The writing in the email is terrible and full of grammar issues


• The person hasn't researched our business or even looked at our website


• The topic is too inflammatory


• The topic is relevant but not inline with our firm's philosophy


• The topic is tired and overused


• There is no value for our audience

When I read a guest blog pitch, I evaluate it for all of these things.

Don't make me hate helping you

Recently, I made the mistake of tentatively accepting a guest post pitch even though the grammar in the email wasn't up to our standards. We work with CEOs, founders, and marketing directors in a variety of industries, including biotech and finance, all who tend to have advanced educations and expect quality writing.

As such, we require all the content on our website to be grammatically correct, to flow well, and to be coherent.

I ignored my instinct because the proposed topic was really interesting and I felt it would be a great blog post for our current clients. I ended up paying for it. The draft that the guest writer sent over was subpar, to put it nicely. A blog post will undergo revisions, but this post was grammatically challenged and incoherent, jumping from point to point and back again.

I Tracked Changes during the revision process, then returned the post to the writer, who I didn't hear back from.

The winning 10%

We've noticed that winning guest pitches - whether ours or others who pitch to our blog - have a few things in common, in that the pitchers seem to realize the following:

• It's not easy and it does take time


• Always be professional and respectful


• Know your audience (both the person you're emailing and the folks who are reading their website/blog)


• Read their existing blog posts


• Pitch a relevant topic


• Follow-up is key to getting a response (rejection or approval)


• Don't push it


• Don't get discouraged

We don't anticipate this 90/10 rule for the blog pitches we accept to change. It's unfortunate, but we know that many digital marketers will never fully understand guest blog pitches and will continue the machine-gun pitching strategy.

7 tips for a successful guest blog pitch

Based on our experience pitching guest blogs and accepting guest blogs, we have several insights to share with writers, marketers, and website owners.

1. Steer clear of paying for guest post opportunities

This one always surprises me. It's only a matter of time before sites that sell space on their blog are nixed from the SERPs. We always decline when a website we pitch tells us they will publish it for a fee.

2. Do your own research

We always perform our own research to vet a website, ensure it's relevant, and make sure it actually has a blog we'd like to write for.

3. Don't always go after 60+ DA websites

It's great to land a guest blog on a high DA site, but these are often very tough. It's often better to start with the "low-hanging fruit," relevant sites that might have low domain authority.

4. Write a thoughtful article that adds value

Don't write crap. Consider every guest blog you write to be a graded assignment. Your professional reputation still matters in a digital world. If you write crap, you will be judged for it.

5. Provide options.

People, including editors, like to have options. You might have a great topic, but it's always best to present several great topics. You never know, the editor may have previously accepted a similar topic.

6. Be genuine.

Ditch your generic email pitch. You may start with a template, but spend 15 minutes or so tailoring it to your pitch.

If you can, find the person's name and personalize the message. Keep in mind that many of the people you pitch receive lots of unsolicited pitches every day. Stand out from the rest by being genuine and unique.

7. Don't spam or waste people's time.

If the website you're pitching isn't relevant to your industry, don't pitch them. If they take the time to send you a rejection notice, be gracious and respectful. Take it as a learning experience and thank them for their time.

The last thing I've learned about rejecting and submitting guest blog posts is a success comes from creating a partnership between the person doing the pitching and the person being pitched. Our approach is always to offer something of value, be respectful, and, hopefully, create a connection beneficial for everyone.

Have you been successful in pitching guest posts? What's worked for you?

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Check It Out: Moz Content's Q2 Feature Updates (Tons of New Stuff!)

Posted by tylermurray

It's been a busy quarter for the Moz Content team, and we're excited to share the results of our hard work!

During the first few months after launch, we focused most of our energy on improving the Content Audit workflow with a few stability- and speed-related updates sprinkled in. This quarter we've had the opportunity to explore exciting ideas that create unique insights for you, our awesome users! These are the first (but definitely not the last) round of innovative additions for the year.

I want to see these updates in action!

One of the more challenging aspects of building and executing on a content strategy is the ideation phase. The proverbial question of “what should I write next?” is a constant theme in our customer and industry feedback. That's why we've focused a majority of our efforts on taking the pain out of content ideation.

With that, here are the goods from Q2:

Tracked Audit redesign

Fully interactive historical data

Last quarter we received a fair amount of feedback referencing confusion with the timeframe selection in Tracked Audits. We also weren't happy with the level of interaction users had with the visualizations. With that feedback, we overhauled the entire experience to allow you the ability to drill down into specific time segments.

This becomes powerful when comparing performance of a site over, say, the previous quarter or month. You also now have the flexibility to toggle visibility of the data you care about. Don't care about Pinterest shares of your content? Great - go ahead and toggle that off with a single click in the graph legend.

Related topics

Important topics that exist in my content domain

Ideation can be a huge challenge when consistently working to produce relevant and timely content for your audience. The new related topics feature in Content Search shows you topics your competitors are writing about that you may have missed or ignored. When ideating, this can provide a set of unique, relevant, and potentially high-performing topics to seed new ideas.

Here's how it works

Each article has topics we've extracted from the page content. When you perform a Content Search, we run an aggregation over said extracted topics that takes into account publication date and Reach score to generate a list of the most relevant Related Topics for your query.

Example: Our team loves pizza, so we're often interested in the latest pizza news. Performing a search for “pizza” articles in the last month produces what we believed to be an erroneous related keyword seen below (mount kilimanjaro). Mount Kilimanjaro?! All it took was one click to realize that no, this was no mistake: Pizza Hut delivered a pizza to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The team has to know about this! And that, my friends, is why you should all be using the Related Topics feature.

Content performance scale

Performance relative to similar content

When you're comparing content performance against the competition, it's not always as simple as looking at one brand or website versus your own. It's often the case that you're competing for viewership with many websites that bleed in and out of your primary industry or vertical. That's why we've introduced a new comparison tool in our search results. We now show you how a piece of content performs relative to similar results in our search index.

This helps tease out interesting answers to questions, like "Is a goal of 25 shares on Facebook a good number for this piece of content?" Or similarly, "What's realistic engagement on LinkedIn for content about this topic?"

Oh, and how about those Roger emoticons?! We even use them in our Slack channels!

(High-five to Derric Wise for these!)

Digest emails

A weekly snapshot of performance

With an active Tracked Audit, we crawl your site and discover, measure, and track your content on a weekly basis. Our recently released digest emails take this a step further by providing an indication of when we've completed your weekly audit, in addition to some unique highlights (or, in some cases, lowlights) from the past week.

We've just enabled weekly digests for all existing Tracked Audits and digests are turned on by default going forward. It's easy to update your email settings on the Dashboard by selecting the cog icon at the top of an audit tile, or by adjusting your account-level settings at moz.com/email.

Faster searches, more results (Seriously, a lot faster!)

We know there's no time to waste when producing awesome content for your audience! That's why we've worked hard to leverage the power of ElasticSearch, an extremely powerful storage utility, which allows us to index and serve many millions of documents in a matter of milliseconds. When we started storing all of this data, we weren't entirely sure how we'd be using it in the future. As the index grew, we were forced to cap the number of results for a query at around 13k documents due to network limitations. These latest updates to our index now allow access to millions of results and begin to open up interesting new questions.

Ready to check out the new-and-improved Moz Content?

We hope you're as excited about these new features as we are. As always, feel free to leave questions, concerns, or ideas in the comments below! We love feedback, and we love incorporating it into the product even more.

Huge ups to the team: Greg Burton, Ben Robbins, Chris Whitten, Jay Leary, David O'Hara, and David Him.

PS: We'll all be at a MozCon booth this year, so feel free to drop by and say hello!

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6 of the Best Professional Bio Examples We've Ever Seen

A short, professional bio is one of those things most people don't think about until, all of a sudden, we've been asked to "shoot one over via email" and have approximately one afternoon to come up with it.

That's when we scramble.

And when we scramble, our bio ends up reading like this:

Rodney Erickson is a content marketing professional at HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. Previously, Rodney worked as a marketing manager for a tech software startup. He graduated with honors from Columbia University with a dual degree in Business Administration and Creative Writing."

... Woof, that was dull. Are you still with me? I swear, not even adding a tidbit about his cats would liven that bio up. 

To be fair, in certain contexts, your professional bio does need to be more formal, like Mr. Erickson's up there. But in many cases, writing a bio that's readable -- even conversational -- is actually a really good thing. That means dropping that traditional format of listing your accomplishments like a robot and cramming as much professional-sounding jargon in there as you can.

Remember: The people reading your bio are suffering from information fatigue. If you don't hook 'em in the first line, you'll lose them quickly.

Alright, I know what you may be thinking ... So what? It's just a bio.

Why Does Your Professional Bio Matter?

I mean, how many people actually read those things, anyway? 

The answer: A lot of people. More importantly, though, there's no way to tell exactly who is reading it -- and you always want it to be ready for when the right people to come across it. And when they do, you want it to catch their eye. In a good way.

You see, while your resume is only useful for when you're actively applying for specific positions, your professional bio is much more visible. It can live on your LinkedIn profile, your company's website, your guest blog posts, your speaker profiles, your Twitter bio, and many other places.

And, most importantly, it's the tool that you can leverage most when you're networking.

Bottom line? People will read your professional bio. Whether they remember it, and whether it makes them actually care about you, is a matter of how well you present yourself to your intended audience.

So, what does a top-notch professional bio look like?

Let's take a look at some great examples. We've curated some of the best real professional bio examples we've ever seen online. Check 'em out, and use them as inspiration when crafting your own.

6 of the Best Professional Bio Examples We've Ever Seen

1) Phil

Phil is a real estate broker for the East Boston neighborhood, and he's mastered the art of adding a warm personality to the professional bio on his website.

First, check out the header of his bio: "Promoting positive community and economic growth in our neighborhood."

The header isn't all about him, nor is it a hard sell about his business. Instead, he's chosen to start with a value proposition. Why? Because Phil knows that his value proposition is the core of his competitive advantage. In header text that stands out on the page, he clearly articulates why someone would want to hire him instead of a competitor: This guy doesn't just sell houses to make money; he promotes community and economic growth in the area. 

The rest of his bio includes personal touches that make him more human. He does talk about his business history and accomplishments, but he does so while including personal details that invite readers to relate to him as a person.

For instance, he talks about where he's from (a relevant detail for a real estate broker), his love of the water, why he started his business, and how he's committed to the local community. His bio indicates he's friendly and probably a pleasure to work with, which is important for a real estate broker someone would be working with one-on-one.

2) Ann

If you're a marketer, you've likely heard of Ann Handley. Her list of credentials is lengthy, and if she really wanted to, she could go on and on and on about her accomplishments.

But when people list out all their accomplishments in their bios, they risk sounding a little egotistical. Sure, you might impress a handful of people with all those laurels, but many people who read your bio will end up feeling either intimidated or annoyed. Think about it: Is that how you want the majority of your readers to feel when they read your bio? 

To minimize the egoism that comes with talking about yourself, think about how you can list out your accomplishments without sounding like you're bragging. Ann does this really well, choosing a tone in her bio that's more approachable.

It starts with the excerpt in the footer of her personal website. Give it a quick read, paying close attention to the opening and closing lines:

 

"This is Ann Handley's website, and this is a bit of copy about her ... That's not giving you a lot of detail, is it? So read more here." This is the kind of simple, friendly language that invites the reader in rather than shutting them out.

Follow the link and you'll be led to a page dedicated to a fuller bio, which she's divided into two parts: a "short version" (literally a bulleted list of key facts) and a "long version," which includes traditional paragraphs. There's something in there for everyone.

3) Hillary

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has different versions of her bio all over the internet. As you can imagine, some are more formal than others. But when it comes to her Twitter bio, she has carefully phrased her bio information in a way that helps her connect with her audience -- specifically, through the use of humor. 

Why would she choose humor, especially when she's seeking support for such a, well, serious job? Actually, Hillary's tactic is totally intentional: It's just one of the many levers she and her team are pulling to rebrand her with a fresh image, while maintaining her already impressive, well-established identity. 

"In politics, authenticity can be a powerful trait, and it is one that sometimes has escaped Clinton," wrote Philip Rucker and Anne Gearan for the Washington Post. "In her 2008 presidential campaign, despite some raw displays of emotion, she often came across as overly programmed."

That's exactly why Hillary and her team chose to leverage her Twitter bio (among other marketing channels) to help her become more relatable to her fans.  And for her audience, it's really worked. The New York Times, for example, called Twitter bios "a postmodern art form."

When crafting your own Twitter bio, consider your audience and the personal brand you're trying to create for yourself. Use it as an opportunity to be relatable. (And check out this list of amusing Twitter bios for inspiration.)

4) Lena

When it all comes down to it, your professional bio is no different than any other piece of persuasive copy -- no matter where it lives. One of the most common mistakes people make is thinking of it as its own beast, separate from other pieces of writing. If you think about it that way, you're far more likely to write something painfully uninteresting.

When you sit down to write your professional bio and you're watching that cursor blinking on the screen, think about how you would introduce a blog post. You don't just dive right into the meat of the thing, now, do you? No. You start with an introduction.

The best bios are often concise (around 200–300 words), so you don't have a lot of room to play around. But a single sentence that tees your reader up and provides context for the accomplishments that follow could make the rest of your bio that much more persuasive.

Take Lena Axelsson's bio, for instance. She's a marriage and family therapist -- a job where empathy and compassion are a big part of the job description. That's why she chooses to open her bio with a great introductory sentence: "When human beings experience trauma or severe life stressors, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel."

Then, she goes into why she's passionate about her job, how she helps her clients, and how she caters her approach to each individual patient. The necessary educational information is left for the end, after the reader has been hooked.

Your bio doesn't have to be super serious, nor does it have to start with a joke. This bio shows how you can capture your reader's attention by being empathetic or telling a brief story.

5) Mark

Mark Levy is a small business owner who's taken a more traditional approach to the professional bio on his website -- but in a way that takes care to speak to his intended audience.

What we love about his bio is the way he's set it up: On his business' "About" page, he's listed two biographies, which he's labeled "Mark Levy's Biography #1" and "Mark Levy's Biography #2."

[Click here to see the full version.]

Like Ann, Mark's given his readers two different options. The first biography is a "short version," which includes a combination of bullet points listing his credentials and a few short paragraphs.

The second is the "long version," which is actually even more interesting than the first one. Why? Because it reads like a story -- a compelling one, at that. In fact, it gets really funny at parts.

The second sentence of the bio reads: "He was frightened of public school, loved playing baseball and football, ran home to watch ape films on the 4:30 Movie, listened to The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and read magic trick books."

Here's another excerpt from the middle:

Of course, the fantastic copywriting isn't a surprise, given that this guy wrote several books. But the conversational tone and entertaining copy let his quirky personality (and great writing skills) shine.

6) Corey

Finally, we have Corey Wainwright, who's the director of content here at HubSpot. She's written content for HubSpot's Marketing Blog for years, and her blog author bio has caught my eye since before I ever started working for HubSpot. (Back then, it started with, "Corey just took a cool vacation.")

What I love most about Corey's bio is that it's a great example of how to deliver information about yourself without taking things too seriously. And in this context, that's totally appropriate. 

Despite having a number of impressive accomplishments under her belt, she simply doesn't like displaying them publicly. So, she prefers making her author bio a little more "light." 

Her bio (pictured below) reads, "Corey is a Bruce Springsteen fan who does content marketing, in that order."

It works in this particular context because, at HubSpot, our blog authors often prefer to make themselves as friendly and approachable as possible -- while letting the content speak for itself.

It helps that authors' social media accounts are located right below our names and above our pictures. For folks who really do want a list of Corey's credentials, they can click the LinkedIn button to go to her LinkedIn page. (You can read this blog post to learn how to create social media buttons and add them to your website.)

What are your favorite professional bio examples? Share with us in the comments.