Trevor Klein says, “The Moz Blog is built to help you all become better marketers. We couldn’t possibly succeed in that goal if we didn’t have a good sense for who you are and what you’d like to (and need to) see, so we did what anyone would do to get that sense: ask.This summer, we released a survey to ask you all about yourselves, your work, and your thoughts about the Moz Blog. This is the second time we’ve done this in the last several years, which makes these results all the more exciting—now we have trending data.The results from the survey are below, with... [...]

MOZ team says, “When you’re creating content, especially when you’re a smaller shop without much inherent authority, it’s often a good idea to publish that content on a different site — one that does have authority and can help you rank by linking back to the original version on your site. What types of platforms should you approach, though, and should you publish it on your own site first? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand answers those questions and dispels a rumor about whether this approach could lead to duplicate content penalties (hint: nope!)“.Guest... [...]

Rebecca Maynes says, “Local online listings are an essential component of an effective strategy to drive customers into local stores. Ranking highly in the search engine results and dominating the top rankings with your listings is critical for your customers to be able to find you in an online search.Partnering with Placeable, Mediative, one of North America’s leading digital marketing and advertising agencies, took twenty-five of Canada’s top retail brands (those with multiple local stores, spread nationally), and analyzed how they’re faring when it comes to local digital marketing... [...]

Erica McGillivray says, “Looking to level up your local marketing and SEO skills? Join us in Seattle for MozCon Local, Thursday and Friday, February 18-19. With both an all-day conference and a half-day workshop, you’ll hear from top local speakers on topics critical to local marketing, including local link building, app search, mobile optimization, content creation, and so much more. For those who attended LocalUp Advanced last year, this is its newest iteration.For Friday’s main show, we’ll have a full day of speakers giving in-depth presentations with tons of actionable... [...]

Kristi Hines says, “How do you use keywords? If you’re only using them to optimize your website for search, then you’re missing out on many ways to get visibility amongst your target audience. In this post, I’m going to share with you the best ways to use keywords across your entire online (and even offline) marketing strategy.Webpage optimizationI don’t want to spend a lot of time on this one, especially since you can read all about it in the Beginner’s Guide to SEO. But just for a quick review, here are the places that you should use your target keyword phrase... [...]

Sarah Gurbach says, “”We need more content.”– Every brand ever, at some point in the history of their companyHaving worked as a digital consultant over the past few years, I have been exposed to a good amount of brands in various industries. Some had content teams that consisted of one freelance copywriter, while others had a full-blown crew stocked with designers, videographers, and a slew of writers. Regardless of size, though, when discussing their content needs, there was always one common theme: they thought they needed more of it.And honestly, my reaction would... [...]

MOZ team says, “Through experimentation and analysis of patents that Google has submitted, we’ve come to know some interesting things about what the engine values. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers some of what Google likely learns from certain user behavior, specifically queries, CTR, and long vs. short clicks“.The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google’s Rankings – Whiteboard FridayMOZ Blog [...]

Anthony D. Nelson says, “Over the years, you’ve certainly read something about how Google loves fresh content. Perhaps you’ve read that sometimes it takes its love of freshness too far.Now it’s the middle of 2015. Does freshness still play a significant role in how Google ranks search results?To find out, I decided to conduct a small experiment on a blog. Specifically, I wanted to see if my test could answer the following questions:If you update a blog post’s date, will it receive a boost in the search engine results pages (SERPs)?Can you fake freshness?Do you... [...]

Eric Enge says, “Yes, we all know that content marketing is all the rage. More and more brands are embracing content marketing as a basic way to engage with the community at large, and to build credibility, trust, and relationships with potential customers.You’ve probably also heard about content fatigue, or the oncoming content glut. Mark Schaefer attracted a ton of attention on this topic with his post, “Content Shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy.” A key part of his thesis is that each human “has a physiological, inviolable limit to the amount... [...]

Steve Rayson says, “This summer BuzzSumo teamed up with Moz to analyze the shares and links of over 1m articles. We wanted to look at the correlation of shares and links, to understand the content that gets both shares and links, and to identify the formats that get relatively more shares or links.What we found is that the majority of content published on the internet is simply ignored when it comes to shares and links. The data suggests most content is simply not worthy of sharing or linking, and also that people are very poor at amplifying content. It may sound harsh but it seems most... [...]