The Moz Blog

SEO Contract Template: A Verbal Contract Isn't Worth The Paper It's Written On

Having bounced around the SEO industry for the past few years, I’ve managed to keep a record of (what I consider to be) useful information when it comes to dealing with SEO client’s. When I was an SEO consultant I used this information to create a personalized SEO contract for my business. With all the hoopla out there about SEO’s being snakes, deadbeats etc, I figured now wou...

Compete.com Metrics - An Interview with Jeremy Crane

For the past couple weeks, I've been chatting over email with the folks at Compete.com about their web popularity reporting & analytics tools. Luckily enough, Jeremy Crane, the Director of Search & Online Media for Compete, agreed to an interview. Below, you can learn a lot more about how Compete gathers data, where...

Search Results Improve With Social Media Eliminations

If you've ever had a small to medium sized website have an incredibly popular outing at Digg, the following story is probably quite familiar. Many months later - seven, in this case - the referrals from Digg, whilst having dwindled to very few, keep rolling in on a somewhat regular basis. You didn't think much of it, because you'd become accustomed to seeing that page or those pages get Digg, Stum...

Your Users Aren't Intuitive, Which is Why Your Forms Need to Be

For SEM Tuesday I'm cheating a little and talking about forms and usability; however, if you have a sign up form or some sort of registration on your landing pages, this is sound advice that ties in well. In an attempt to be hardcore in 2008, I decided, at Christine's insistence, to sign up for the New Balance Half I...

How to Write for the Web

This is condensed from various sources, including especially Jakob Nielsen's articles on Writing for the Web.Why do you need to know how to write, for SEO?If you spend time writing any of the following:Page titles (the <title> tag)Page descriptions ...

Advice for Startup CEOs

In honor of today's holiday, I thought I'd change up the subject and talk a little bit about leadership in a small business startup. This is a subject that I don't have nearly the authority or experience to speak about in the same way as SEO. After all, I've worked on dozens of successful search marketing projects, but only one startup - ...

Bait and Switch - with FAST FOOD?

So I was eating at Del Taco and... I LOVE Del Taco's $0.99 Chicken Soft Tacos. In fact. I like them SO MUCH that I refer my friends to it. Now the other day I happened to eat 3 of these that did not meet my expectations. Now of course, this is 100% the fault of the franchise (which inspires some other interesting analogies as well.), but It certainly put my mind...

Yes Dear, There is Porn SEO, and We Can Learn a Lot From It

After reading last Sunday's post on seo in pornography, and decided I'd have a bit of fun with it. Whether or not you are willing to promote pornography, there are some absolutely stellar tips hidden away in it's vast, obscure world.Disclaimer: I do not promote pornograp...

The Anatomy of a RipOff Report Lawsuit

May It Please the Mozzers, Last week, there were several excellent posts elucidating the many ways RipOff Report violates Google's Terms of Service, and yet manages to stay on top of the Google search results pages. Rand, ...

Rewriting the Beginner's Guide Part IV Continued - Canonical and Duplicate Versions of Content

I'm currently working on re-authoring and re-building the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here. Why Canonical Versions of Content are Critical to SEO ...

14 Popular Browser Toolbars Reviewed - The Worthwhile and the Worthless

Tonight I wanted to look at one of the least-discussed, but most popular set of tools on the web - the browser toolbar. Although toolbars have been around since the mid-1990's, their most dominant era (from the late '90's-early 2000's) could be interpreted as being. I'm not convinced. Obviously, web developers and Internet marketers of all stripes are still heavily invested in toolbar u...

Whiteboard Friday - Creating Marketing Personas

Hey Gang, This week we've got a special guest in Whiteboard Studios, Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive. Ian and Rand discuss the marketing tactic of creating "personas." If you've ever seen "Shaun of the Dead" (and if you haven't, you should), you'll remember the scene where Shaun and Ed are sitting in the p...