35 SEO & Social Media Expert Interviews

Three of the most trusted SEO and social media experts, Rhea Drysdale, Tamar Weinberg and Lee Odden. Photo by toprankonlinemarketing.

Interviews are often overlooked pieces of distilled wisdom. They aren’t very popular on social media but they definitely should be! In interviews experts often provide the most valuable nuggets of their knowledge in a very concise form. You need to study dozens of other blog posts to learn as much.

Moreover experts often tend to focus on one aspect a time when they write something themselves, even when compiling a list like this. On the other hand interviews focus on several key questions an expert wouldn’t even attempt to cover in one blog post or seminar. These facts combined result in in a very condensed piece of advice.

Also it’s quite difficult to determine who’s a real expert and who is not in the SEO industry and even more in social media marketing.

When someone gets interviewed s/he’s either popular or an expert or both. The difficulty in compiling this list of interviews was not finding 30 of them but sorting out the less valuable ones from the dozens there are. Also I wanted to feature not only the people everybody knows already like Rand Fishkin or Matt Cutts. There are numerous interviews with them.

Some true experts hide behind an invisible persona as an inhouse SEO and/or social media expert

but really have something to say others haven’t. So I added a few of inhouse SEO expert from big enterprises.

Last but not least I couldn’t find good interview that offers deep insights with some of the brightest minds of the industry like Danny Sullivan or Barry Schwartz. There were either too short, shallow, outdated or too much focused on a specific event or topic. Add those in the comment section if you think they are must read. I repeat, I didn’t just look at the names, I solely selected those interviews that offer real insights.

OK, enough of this, follow the links  below to read the interviews with some of the most renowned SEO and social media experts.

SEO experts

Inhouse SEO experts

Social Media experts

Matt Cutts and other Google employees

Business Blogging experts

To be honest: A list of interviews with experts in both SEO and social media could have been a top 100, 200 or 2000. Due to time and reader attention limitations I had to choose approx. 30 of them. Don’t think just because I haven’t included someone s/he isn’t an expert. It was a really tough choice.

I even included an interview with myself without being sure whether people consider me an expert but I was quite sure that I provided some unique insights in this interview.

So accept my apologies for not being on the list please!

Btw. how do I know who’s an expert and who is not? Difficult question. I think I’m at least expert enough by now to determine who is an expert on the subject of SEO and social media.

The interviews above have been conducted between 2008 and 2010. For hundreds of SEO & social media interviews from 2008 and earlier visit this huge list by Donna Fontenot.

Posted in blogging, google, seo, social media |

View the original article here

How to Write Highly Popular 30+ Item List Blog Posts to Get Links and Traffic

Time flies by. It’s more than two years by now that I write the highly popular “30+” list blog posts to get links and traffic for SEOptimise. I’ve often tried to abandon them, to write tutorials or other types of postings but list posts with around 30 items still rule. They get the most

shares on social medialinksattentiontraffic

for several reasons.

This year some of the big guys in the SEO blogosphere started doing 30 something lists as well, SEOmoz does them, SEL compiles them. They even surpass my lists in some cases as they spend obviously more time on them than I do. Their success with this technique has just confirmed to me that 30+ lists work. That’s why I will tell you how to write them.

In the web design/web development niche even more people publish lists like that all the time.

Why 30?

For some reason 30+ lists are better suited for the Web than top 10, 20 or wahtever lists. I have a few ideas why that is the case but these ideas are just speculation. What I do know for sure is that the so called task ROI of most 30+ lists is higher than the top 10, whatever or top 100 lists.

One crucial success factor is that people tend to think in dozens not necessarily tens IMHO.

The decimal system makes us read and write top 10, top 20 or top 100 lists but the more “natural” way to count is by using dozens as in twelve hours. That’s why a number like 36 sounds better to many of us. Even though 30 is two and a half dozens this number just seems to entice people to read.

Also most people are tired of top 10 and 20 lists, they have been overused. Here again 30+ sounds more natural.

Last but not least you simply can’t compile a list of 100 items without broadening the topic or lowering the quality of the list.

Most lists are comprehensive enough with around 30 items.

More items would often be redundant or less relevant. A top 10 list also implies a personal selection of some kind. You have to choose “the best” 10 while 30 items cover a subject in depth.

That’s why I sometimes even reduce the number of items in a list, at least in the headline. One of my favorite lists has been the one about advanced SEO which contained 55+ links but only around 30 items officially.

Delicious

I collect great posts from SEO blogs in my Delicious account onreact.com and I tag them according to a set of rules. I add mostly tags I’ve used in the past to categorize these posting in relevant groups.

Then from time to time I take a look at some of the tags and those that contain more than 10 or 20 items get my attention. Sometimes they are almost thirty already so I just have to copy and paste the links. I delete the unworthy ones and add some from outside my Delicious bookmarks but the bulk of the work has been done while reading social media, search and SEO news in the morning each day.

Sometimes I have to combine several tags into one trend. The brutal thruths about Google, SEO etc. have been such a list. It was clear to me that there was a trend in the industry to write about the less glamorous parts of the SEO game but I couldn’t name it. Then the inspiration came out of nowhere and I have found the common ground to add it up to a list.

In some cases I don’t use Delicious at all. I simply get inspired and write down approx. 30 items from the top of my head.

Twitter

From time to time I use Twitter to crowdsource list items. The SEO FAQ list heavily relied on input from my Twitter followers. Also the black hat SEO techniques list has grown with a little help of my friends.

You have to ask the right questions and offer incentives though. The SEO FAQ offered both backlinks and content for those who took part. I asked my Twitter followers about the black hat SEO techniques their arch enemies use. Otherwise people would probably mostly stay low key.

Link list or item list?

A simple link list is not the best kind of list. Sometimes I just have to compile a list of resources and link  them beacuse there are so many of them. Such a list can overwhelm though. Many people like lists because they want to have a quick overview about a subject, not a huge reading list. Therefore a combined text item list with added links for further reading is the best option. This way you get both kinds of list readers, the save for later bunch as well as the quick overview group.

A simple link list will not be as popular as an item list with added links to prove the points. Still both list formats are highly popular. A 30+ list post done in 4h will get more traction on the Web than a tutorial that took 6 or 8h to write.

Linking out

Another key factor leading to the overwhelming success of my lists posts in general is the massive amount of outbound links. While many SEOs are still stuck in the past and attempt to hoard PageRank and trap users like the news media do I rely on linking out for SEO reasons.

We already know that Google prefers sites that link out

(after all they need outgoing links to determine their PageRank algo) but have no proof yet that they affect rankings directly.

What’s obvious though is that people who you are linking to will link back to you, spread the word on social media and support your blog or even business in the future.

So at the end of the day the fact that I link out to dozens of other blogs get me traffic and links in significant numbers.

Contrary to popular wisdom SEOptimise has improved in rankings in recent years ever since we link out in large numbers. SEOptimise ranks in the top 10 for some of the most competitive search marketing terms while being a relatively small agency compared to the competition.

Also the lists themselves tend to rank quite well. SEOptimise ranks top 3 for [advanced SEO], [SEO techniques] or [social media statistics].

The secret is our broad, organic backlink structure build up by business blogging utilizing these highly popular 30+ items list posts.

Posted in blogging, linkbait, seoptimise, social media, twitter |

View the original article here

Top 20 WordPress Plugins to Supercharge Your Blog

Tweet Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by Kevin Gibbons

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

My Thoughts On Google Instant

Everyone is talking about Google Instant; the new way for Google to display results.

Image from Zenera on Flickr

The basics are covered in many places:

I want to talk a bit less about the implementation and a bit more about the implications. It is too early to say anything for sure but here are my thoughts on how the new Google UI will alter the PPC landscape.

1. There will be more impressions
Impressions on Google Instant are counted differently to normal. Even thought Google are not recording impressions willy nilly (the user must interact with the page or wait 3 seconds) the total number of AdWords adverts served will increase. The interesting aspect is how these extra impressions will be distributed rather than if there will be extra impressions or not (they have to go somewhere).

2. The number of clicks will increase
This one is much more of a guess than point 1. I can’t see the number of AdWords clicks dropping so it will either stay the same or increase. I’m going to go with “increase” for two reasons:

I can’t imagine Google making a change that hits their bottom lineOrganic results are pushed even further down the page.

3. CTR will blah, blah, blah
Who cares? Aside from quality score implications (discussed below) who gives a shit about CTR? Joking aside, I think this one will go both ways. On the one hand, there will be more impressions so CTR may go down. On the other hand the page interaction criteria for an impression to count introduces a sampling bias in what is counted as an impression.

4. Quality Score
Make up some quality score numbers and perform the quality score calculation as it is described by Google. Now reduce the score for you and the you-1 ranked ad by 10% and repeat the calculation. Your CPC has not changed! The point I am trying to make it that I believe it is your quality score relative to other advertisers that matters. If the new interface penalises everyone equally then there is nothing to worry about. Of course, any advertiser who can find away to avoid a drop in quality score when everyone else is failing … ;-)

5. Redefining the “Head”
A lot of people are talking about bidding on “stem” queries in order to capture searchers earlier in their query. For example an advertiser selling widgets may bid on “wikipedia” or “widnes” because these searches are triggered before the user has finished typing “widgets”. I don’t see this as being a massive game changer; it is no different to an advertiser selling black nike football boots bidding on “football boots”. The top of the head has been made bigger (the head now has a “hat”) but that is all. The game is still the same, but the pitch is larger.

6. The shorter, fatter tail
I expect to see the number of different queries drop as people are steered down well defined search paths. However, it is important to remember that the suggestions aren’t set in stone so that discarding a keyword because it doesn’t appear in the suggestion box may mean that opportunities are missed later on.

7. CPCs
CPCs may increase on head keywords that are stem phrases for valuable queries. Morrissons may start paying more for their brand terms in order to stay ahead of people trying to target people looking for mortgages. For keywords in the tail CPCs should fall; aggregating traffic from a larger number of search queries into one query will result in a small amount of inefficiancy that wasn’t there before; this should cause CPCs to fall (use the comments to correct me if I’m wrong). What I think will actually happen is that a larger number of advertisers bidding on a smaller number of keywords will cause CPCs to increase.

Posted in google adwords, ppc |

View the original article here

40 Google Instant SEO, SEM & Analytics Resources

Image by Westside Shooter.

Google Instant is the talk of the town not only in the SEO industry. While some people still hope SEO will go away most experts agree that SEO is either just changing a bit or now more important than ever due to the recent changes. So I won’t list most of the usual “SEO is not dead” posts here as I expect you to know that. I’ll focus on what the instant search results will mean for SEO, SEM and analytics in reality.

Check out the following 40 Google Instant SEO, SEM & analytics resources list. Btw. The last item is probably the best one.

What is Google Instant all about

IMHO Google Instant is just Google Suggest on Speed. The first four suggestions from Google Suggest get shown in Google Instant now. As of now only registered and logged in users see it so its impact may be not yet that huge. Google wants to roll it out to all others though in future. Click the links below for more exact definitions and broader explanations.

What are the motivations behind Google Instant?

Speed is the official motivation behind the new search interface but some pundits including Kevin Gibbons of SEOptimise suspect monetization as the key idea behind Google Instant.

What are the issues with Google Instant?

Is Google Instant really better? Many people encountered problems like distraction, censorship, or downright irrelevant results. Find out more about them. The owners of Naked Pizza will have to rethink their branding strategy it seems because NSFW results don’t show up.

What are the ramifications of Google Instant for SEO, SEM, analytics etc.

Most people seem to agree that the long tail, that is often exotic search queries with 3 or more keywords will get used less by searchers. On the flip side people will probably at least in some cases follow the trail laid out by Google Instant and click search results from partial queries. Sadly Google Analytics won’t show partial queries you ranked for. Instead Google will always send the “predicted query” as part of the referrer. 

Google Instant SEO Techniques

How do we adapt to the new search interface? How do we explain the changes to clients?
Do we have to optimize for partial queries now? Do you have to try to rank for flow when you sell flowers? Questions like these arise and get answered already by some SEO practicioners. Apparently others already practice black hat SEO for Google Instant, make sure to click the last item for these techniques.

What else? Last time Google has introduced a big change to its search result interface it hasn’t worked out due to unnecessary complexity. Do you remember the Google SearchWiki (NOT the SideWiki)? You could add, remove, move and comment on search results. I really liked it but most people got annoyed by the new options. This time I expect many people to get annoyed as well. Some of the articles linked above already mention that.

So Google Instant might disappear within a year like Google SearchWiki did. So don’t panic and change your SEO strategy altogether. Keep in mind that you should try to act independently and not follow every whim of Google. Keep calm and add more content, promote it and get links. You should be fine with that, mo matter the search interface.

Posted in google, google analytics, ppc, seo, website analytics |

View the original article here

50+ Advanced Web Analytics Tools for Business Use [2010 Edition]

Web analytics is perhaps the most important discipline for businesses online. In case you don’t know who and why visits you, buys your products and talks about you, you are blind on the Web.

Web analytics goes beyond simple SEO metrics.

It’s about

among others.

Additionally, with the huge influence of social media, it’s more important than ever to monitor social media buzz. While some people still assume that there are no social media measurement tools there are already dozens out there.

So check out these 50+ advanced web analytics tools for business use. It’s the updated 2010 edition. Of course I assume that you know by now the industry standard solution Google Analytics.

This list has been first compiled in February, 2009 so I decided to update and republish it 18 months later. I’ve removed, added and changed numerous links.

Make sure not to miss the Social Media analytics solutions at the bottom of the list.

Free and/or Affordable Analytics Solutions

Search Analytics

Heat Maps and Usability Tracking

Enterprise Analytics

Hosted/Server Side Solutions

Twitter & Facebook Analytics

Social Media Analytics

Enterprise Social Media Monitoring Tools

Thanks to the colleagues of @GuavaUK for suggesting CoreMetrics and Unica on Twitter. Also thanks to SEMPlanning.com for providing a huge list of social media buzz tracking tools I used while researching.

This post was first published on February 26th, 2009. It was last updated on August 20th, 2010.

Tags: heat maps, metrics, social media analytics, stats, tools, web analytics
Posted in seo, social media, twitter, website analytics |

View the original article here

New Digg Review: Is Digg V4 the Next Twitter?

Typical Digg comment thread.

Last week the new Digg version 4 has been released and I have tested it ever since. Back in the days I was a staunch opponent of Digg and an avid supporter of competing services like StumbleUpon and Mixx. That was years ago though. Both Mixx and SU have stagnated over time. So I decided to take a look at the new Digg. Maybe it has been fixed now?

Most business people have been either expelled from the first wave of social sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Mixx or moved on of their own accord to more mature sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn that don’t discriminate against business users and are not full of NSFW images.

Digg has deteriorated over the years to become a cesspool full of sexism and a battle ground for teenage boy’s flame wars.

It’s not as bad as competitor Reddit which ended up being the place for hate-mongers and rants though.

With version four Kevin Rose, known for his misguided antipathy against the SEO industry, tries to save what’s left of an originally good idea: social news. Can he beat Twitter and Facebook and most importantly his own community that has made Digg the hellhole it was until now?

Following

Digg seems to aim at both Twitter and StumbleUpon. It’s very similar to both services. You have to follow users or publications and see their activity.

Similar to Twitter main stream “blogs” like TechCrunch or Mashable have an overwhelming advantage this way. They have already tens of thousands of followers who vote anything up they see. Understandably many people don’t like this feature as some major publishers can dominate the frontpage this way.

On the other hand the follow feature revives “old” and not yet popular stories on Digg. Until now only front page stories could get substantial traffic from Digg. Most of these visitors were terribly untargeted though and left in an instant so that you got a huge server load while not getting much in return. Unless of course you got links. Thus Digg has been used by many for link building for years.

Once a story has hit the fp it could garner a substantial number of links. This is still true to some extent but with Facebook and Twitter getting more popular you don’t get as many links these days anymore.

I got notified about someone following me. That’s why I joined the new Digg in the first place. Sadly most follwoers do not see your submissions it seems. Everything you do gets shown to them so that submissions get overlooked when you digg other people’s submissions and comment.

Comments

The most dreaded and for some people entertaining (in a freak show kind of way) part of Digg was the comment section. As Digg adds no other value beyond the selection of stories and commenting many people read those. Unfortunately especially women and business people were appalled but the blatant sexism, aggressive NSFW battleground that comment section was. In V4 of Digg the site attempts to clean up the comment section.

The most approved of comments get displayed on top if you select the right option in the preferences. Some flame comments by trolls are below the display threshold and can only be seen on click. You can hide comments below a certain number of votes. I strongly approve of this measure. Can you use Digg again during work hours and even without watching Fight Club first? Not really.

A comment that disagreed with my opinion started with “F**k you!” and got at least 14 votes so that no threshold could have stopped it. My comment containing no swear words has been of course buried. My sin? I expressed my sadness about homeless people protesting for cheap meals in the US while at the same time their government can afford wars and military bases throughout the world. Being from Germany I express often unpopular views for Americans so that most probably I still will be verbally attacked and abused on the new Digg it seems.

Bury button

The feature that was perhaps the other most devastating one for Digg was the so called “bury button”. Using it a self proclaimed Digg police blocked whole topics, e.g. SEO. So basically you weren’t allowed to talk about SEO. The only SEO related posts that were acceptable on Digg were SEO bashing postings. This perpetuated the ignorance on the Digg platform to the point where everything posted on an SEO publication has been boycotted.

At the same spammers have been using Digg to submit their SEO adverts all the time. The bury button led to the effective exclusion of high quality SEO resources while low quality SEO and downright spam about SEO services has been prevalent on Digg. Just search Digg for SEO and you’ll find solely crap submissions, mostly not even in English.

Digg V4 has no bury button anymore. This way resources about SEO theoretically can get popular on Digg again as there is no direct censorship anymore. I doubt though there are enough people interested in the subject. I’m optimistic though that search marketing publications can get exposure on Digg for general technology and Internet postings. Search Engine Land is already on Digg.

The removal of the bury button is an overdue measure to restore democratic voting patterns on Digg. Until now a small minority of maybe a few dozens people have effectively blocked SEO related resources.

The new Digg has a report button instead. I reported myself for instance when a story accidentally got submitted twice by the system. I also reported a submission consisting of dozens of stolen images. We’ll see whether the Digg staff will act on these.

Will I stay on the new Digg?

I don’t know yet. I’m probably not masochistic enough to let people shout at me for expressing my opinions which are quiet common sense (like anti-war) in Europe. Maybe I’ll use Digg as a combination of both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll follow my favorite users and publications and ignore the frontpage and comments altogether. Instead I will “like” their submissions by “digging” them. On the other hand I’m not convinced I need another site to follow them.

People in the SEO industry still push their infographics, lists or other linkbaits on Digg, I guess 1/3 of Digg’s content are linkbaits while the rest are mainstream blogs or publications plus funny or “awesome” images. As I don’t like most of these and SEO publications have no audience there I don’t think it makes business sense for me.

In case you’re into linkbaits, just take some almost naked female celebrity pics or something “Apple”, put it on your blog and the Digg audience will still love it. Digg even says in its meta keyword tag that it’s about “celebrity news” among others.

Posted in facebook, seo, social media, twitter |

View the original article here