Whiteboard Friday

Howdy Moz fans! Welcome to Whiteboard Friday, the longest-running and most popular SEO video series. Featuring industry experts as guest hosts who share their hands-on SEO experience working with agencies, businesses, and consultancies. Each weekly episode delivers actionable SEO training to help you advance your career and master digital marketing. 

Browse our curated favorites or check out the latest episodes below to stay on top of SEO best practices.

Search Intent and the Organic Funnel : Tom reveals how understanding search intent within the organic funnel can transform your keyword research strategy and drive better results.

The Value of SEO Beyond Traffic and Leads : Discover why SEO should be viewed as your website's foundation rather than a set-and-forget tactic, and learn to communicate its full business impact.

Top SEO Tips for 2024 : Crystal shares essential strategies for navigating SEO in an AI-driven landscape, helping you adapt and thrive in this transformative year.

Most Recent Articles on Whiteboard Friday

How Google May Analyze and Evaluate the Quality, Value, & Rank-Worthiness of Your Content
Rand Fishkin

How Google May Analyze and Evaluate the Quality, Value, & Rank-Worthiness of Your Content

Your content has quality links and your keyword targeting is an SEO's dream. Yet for some mysterious reason, that content still isn't ranking. What's missing? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains some of the advanced tactics Google may be using to evaluate and analyze your content and what you should be looking out for to help resolve your ranking woes.

Why You Need to Find All Your NAP Variations Before Building Local Citations
Darren Shaw

Why You Need to Find All Your NAP Variations Before Building Local Citations

Citation consistency got you down? It's one of the most important local search ranking factors, but it can be an overwhelming task to find inconsistencies, and it's often easy to create accidental duplicate listings. In today's guest Whiteboard Friday, Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark and recent speaker at MozCon Local, outlines a foolproof way to discover all your NAP variations to prepare for proper citation building.

Using Related Topics and Semantically Connected Keywords in Your SEO
Rand Fishkin

Using Related Topics and Semantically Connected Keywords in Your SEO

Back in February, we explored balancing keyword targeting with concept targeting. This time around we're looking at using your knowledge of related topics and semantic connections in your on-page SEO processes. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about applying those ideas in ways that will boost your ranking potential and inform your keyword research.

Discovering Which Sites Your Target Audience Visits
Rand Fishkin

Discovering Which Sites Your Target Audience Visits

Identifying your target market is only one-fifth of the battle. If you want to win the proverbial war, you have to know your audience inside and out. Discovering the sites they visit and using that knowledge to your advantage is key, but the best practices to do so can feel unclear. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand outlines a five-step process to more effectively reach and market to your target community.

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Should SEOs Only Care About DIRECT Ranking Signals in Google?
Rand Fishkin

Should SEOs Only Care About DIRECT Ranking Signals in Google?

Can a new friend you connect with at a conference be as strong of a ranking signal as a quality backlink? Can it be ​stronger​? The power of indirect ranking signals is something that can often be overlooked or brushed aside in favor of what we know as hard truth from Google, but doing so is a mistake. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about the importance of broadening your perspective and tactics when it comes to considering both direct and ​indirect​ ranking signals in your SEO.

How to Optimize for Competitors' Branded Keywords
Rand Fishkin

How to Optimize for Competitors' Branded Keywords

It's probably crossed your mind before. ​Should​ you optimize for your competitors' branded keywords? How would you even go about it effectively? Well, in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains some carefully strategic and smart ways to optimize for the keywords of a competitor, from determining their worthiness to properly targeting your funnel to using third-party hosted content for maximum amplification.

Can SEOs Stop Worrying About Keywords and Just Focus on Topics?
Rand Fishkin

Can SEOs Stop Worrying About Keywords and Just Focus on Topics?

Should you ditch keyword targeting entirely? There's been a lot of discussion around the idea of focusing on broad topics and concepts to satisfy searcher intent, but it's a big step to take and could potentially hurt your rankings. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses old-school keyword targeting and new-school concept targeting, outlining a plan of action you can follow to get the best of both worlds.

Targeted Link Building in 2016
Rand Fishkin

Targeted Link Building in 2016

SEO has much of its roots in the practice of targeted link building. And while it's no longer the only core component involved, it's still a hugely valuable factor when it comes to rank boosting. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Rand goes over why targeted link building is still relevant today and how to develop a process you can strategically follow to success.

Content Marketing Tips for B2B Organizations
Rand Fishkin

Content Marketing Tips for B2B Organizations

B2B companies face different challenges than B2C companies. From which stages you target in the funnel to how you measure your success to the ​team you end up selling to, content marketing can be a horse of a different color when you're business-to-business. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares his tips for successful content marketing when you're a B2B.

Using Your Niche's Demand Distribution Curve to Improve Your SEO, Social, and Content Strategy
Rand Fishkin

Using Your Niche's Demand Distribution Curve to Improve Your SEO, Social, and Content Strategy

It's a new year, and that means it's time shift into some new habits regarding your keyword research. Rather than simply targeting marketing blasts at either the in-demand or the long tail, you may want to think about carefully targeting your tactics to the shape of your niche's keyword demand distribution curve. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand details four steps to using these curves to support and improve your existing strategies.

Giving Searchers a Reason to Prefer Your Brand
Rand Fishkin

Giving Searchers a Reason to Prefer Your Brand

It's the season of giving, and that notion extends to search! Brand preferences have an almost tangible impact on several levels, from consumer affinity to a rankings boost on Google. In this holiday edition of our now-traditional White​beard​ Friday, Rand explains why it's important to keep brand recognition at the forefront of your strategy, and offers up a framework on how to get started on giving searchers a reason to prefer your brand.