The Moz Blog

The industry's top wizards, doctors, and other experts offer their best advice, research, how-tos, and insights—all in the name of helping you level-up your SEO and online marketing skills.

Join Us!
Customer Service and Reputation Management the Twitter Way: A Case Study
Rebecca Kelley

Customer Service and Reputation Management the Twitter Way: A Case Study

Social Media

Last year I bought Comcast's NBA League Pass, which gave me access to the entire season of NBA basketball games. My brother egged me on to order it so he could use my online login and watch streaming games at home in Michigan (his cable provider didn't offer League Pass). A couple weeks ago I received a letter from Comcast informing me that they've auto-renewed me for NBA League Pass this year and that if I don't want to renew I'd have to cancel. I asked my brother if he wanted it again this year and he said that he didn't really want to shell out the money for it, so I could go ahead and cancel it if I wasn't going to use it. ...

Microsoft Forces Me to Hate Internet Explorer
Darren Slatten

Microsoft Forces Me to Hate Internet Explorer

Design

I found a quote recently that really embodies my sentiments about Microsoft's Internet Explorer: "If IE6 were a person, I'd punch that person in the face." Whose famous words are these? Mine. That's right, this is something that I--the World's Best SEO--actually said to a client last week, in response to an email he sent me. Here's the backstory...

How to Generate Backlinks from Search Traffic from Brand Keywords
Marc Bitanga

How to Generate Backlinks from Search Traffic from Brand Keywords

Link Building

Recently a site I was working on experienced a huge spike in search traffic from branded keywords. The site was fairly new and no major link building had taken place, and we hadn't worked on approaching any bloggers or media outlets for editorial links. Yet when reviewing our web analytics, we noticed that the spike in traffic were from keywords related to our company name.

Level Up Your SEO Skills With Our Free Training

Moz Academy Training

Complete courses to master SEO basics

Start Learning

Keyword Research Master Guide

Learn Keyword Research like the pros

Read the guide

Guide to SEO Competitor Analysis

Win rankings and traffic from your competition

Read the guide
The Filing Cabinet Theory of Site Architecture
Scott Willoughby

The Filing Cabinet Theory of Site Architecture

Last weekend at Scary SEO, Dave Snyder gave a very solid presentation on Information Environment Design…what the rest of us would call Information Architecture. Duncan Morris also wrote about information/site architecture on SEOmoz very recently. While absorbing both of these presentations, I couldn’t help but think once again of the analogy I repeatedly come back to when trying to explain Info/Site Architecture to people: the filing cabinet.

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/26/08
Rebecca Kelley

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/26/08

SEO Events

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: On Thursday, November 6th, Exact Target and Marketing Sherpa are launching a free, 8-part webinar series. They'll be extracting actionable intelligence from Marketing Sherpa's new 2009 Email Benchmark Guide. If you attend any of the sessions you'll receive $100 off the guide and $400 off Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit being held in March.

Never miss a beat. Get Moz Blog
email updates daily in your inbox

Subscribe to Email Updates
What Quantum of Solace Can Tell Us About Information Architecture
D

What Quantum of Solace Can Tell Us About Information Architecture

Technical SEO

I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again: in my opinion, the number one reason for websites failing online is because they have a poor information architecture. Don't worry, I'm not going to compare myself to Bond. Instead, I'm going to use Quantum of Solace to demonstrate how something as simple as categorizing a new action movie can lead to some serious problems in your site architecture. (Just for the record, I tend to use the phrases 'site' or 'information architecture' interchangeably to cover a multitude of sins.)

Headsmacking Tip #9 - Vertical Content Can Earn You Links
Rand Fishkin

Headsmacking Tip #9 - Vertical Content Can Earn You Links

Link Building

For the next in my headsmacking series, I thought we'd look at the ever-challenging task of earning links to your site. Though it may seem daunting, sprinkling some creativity on the link acquisition puzzle can definitely make the process easier (and sometimes, more fun, too). One of the strategies that seems to elude many site owners and marketers is that of leveraging their vertical content t...

Are You Forcing Your Users to Superfluously Click?
Rebecca Kelley

Are You Forcing Your Users to Superfluously Click?

Marketing Psychology

Unnecessary clicks really put the "super" in "superfluous," yet we run into them all the time. Whether they're the fancy yet impractical creation by a site designer, a lazy workaround courtesy of an apathetic developer, or a misguided "I've been trying to architect this site for two months now and I can no longer see straight" decision by an SEO, these seemingly innocent clicks can have a negative impact on conversion rates or, simply put, they can irritate users. Below are a few examples of some clicks that cause me to grit my teeth and shake my fist.

SEO Company Search Results - An Embarrassment to Google and the Other Engines
Rand Fishkin

SEO Company Search Results - An Embarrassment to Google and the Other Engines

Search Engines

One of the central goals of all the major search engines has always been to limit the extent to which manipulative activity could affect the top search results. It's been my general opinion that there's no better place to start this enforcement than our field - search engine optimization - and the SEO companies that offer this service. It was therefore to my dismay to see the following search r...

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/19/08
Rebecca Kelley

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/19/08

SEO Events

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: * Dwight Silverman criticizes Valleywag writer Paul Boutin, who said that blogs are becoming obsolete and that nowadays all blogs are a "tsunami of paid bilge." Never mind the fact that Paul works fulltime at the SiliValley gossip blog. What a butthole.