December 30, 2014

The Best of 2014: Top People and Posts from the Moz Blog

Content Marketing | Advanced SEO

At the end of every year, we compile a list of the very best posts and most popular and prolific people that have been published on the Moz Blog and YouMoz. It's a really fun way to look back on what happened this year, and an insight-packed view of what really resonates with our readers.

Here's what we've got in store:

Top Moz Blog posts by 1Metric score
Top Moz Blog posts by unique visits
Top YouMoz Blog posts by unique visits
Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up
Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments
Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains
Top comments from our community by number of thumbs up
Top commenters from our community by total number of thumbs up

A huge thanks goes to Dr. Pete Meyers and Cyrus Shepard; their help cut the amount of time creating this piece consumed in half.

We hope you enjoy the look back at the past year, and wish you a very happy start to 2015!

1. Top Moz Blog posts by 1Metric score

Earlier this year, we created a new metric to evaluate the success of our blog posts, calling it "the one metric" in a nod to The Lord of the Rings. We even wrote about it on this blog. With the help and feedback of many folks in the community as well as some refinement of our own, we've now polished the metric, changed the spelling a bit, applied it retroactively to older posts, and are using it regularly in-house. The following posts are those with the highest scores, representing the 10 posts that saw the most overall success this year. In case there was any doubt, Cyrus really (really) knows what he's doing.

1. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

2. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

3. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

4. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

5. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

6. Illustrated Guide to Advanced On-Page Topic Targeting for SEO
November 17 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The concepts of advanced on-page SEO are dizzying: LDA, co-occurrence, and entity salience. The question is "How can I easily incorporate these techniques into my content for higher rankings?" The truth is, you can create optimized pages that rank well without understanding complex algorithms.

7. Panda 4.1 Google Leaked Dos and Don'ts - Whiteboard Friday
December 05 - Posted by Josh Bachynski
Panda is about so much more than good content. Let Josh Bachynski give you the inside information on the highlights of what you should (and should not) be doing.

8. 10 Smart Tips to Leverage Google+ for Increased Web Traffic
April 15 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
While not everyone has an audience active on Google+, the number of people who interact socially with any Google products on a monthly basis now reportedly exceeds 500 million.

9. The Rules of Link Building - Whiteboard Friday
April 04 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Google is increasingly playing the referee in the marketing game, and many marketers are simply leaving instead of playing by the rules. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard takes a time-out to explain a winning strategy.

10. The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors
September 30 - Posted by Gianluca Fiorelli
Nothing like the "The 200 Google Ranking Factors" actually exists. It is a myth, and those who claim to be able to offer a final list are its prophets. This post explains how the myth was born and the importance of knowing the stages of search engines' working process.

2. Top Moz Blog posts by unique visits

The heaviest-weighted ingredient in the 1Metric is unique visits, as one of our primary goals for the Moz Blog is to drive traffic to the rest of the site. With that in mind, we thought it interesting to break things down to just this metric and show you just how different this list is from the last one. Of note: Dr. Pete's post on Google's new design for title tags is a nod to the power of evergreen content. That post is one that folks can return to over and over as they fiddle with their own title tags, and amassed more than twice the traffic of the post in the #2 slot.

1. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

2. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

3. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

4. Why Every Business Should Spend at Least $1 per Day on Facebook Ads
February 19 - Posted by Brian Carter
For the last three years I've constantly recommended Facebook ads. I recommend them to both B2C and B2B businesses. I recommend them to local theaters and comedians here in Charleston, SC. I recommend them to everyone who wants to grow awareness about anything they're doing. Here's why.

5. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

6. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

7. Make Facebook's Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You
January 23 - Posted by Chad Wittman
Recently, many page admins have been experiencing a significant decrease in Total Reach—specifically, organic reach. For pages that want to keep their ad budget as low as possible, maximizing organic reach is vital. To best understand how to make a change like this work for you, and not against you, we need to examine what happened—and what you can do about it.

8. How to Rank Well in Amazon, the US's Largest Product Search Engine
June 04 - Posted by Nathan Grimm
The eCommerce SEO community is ignoring a huge opportunity by focusing almost exclusively on Google. Amazon has roughly three times more search volume for products, and this post tells you all about how to rank.

9. Personas: The Art and Science of Understanding the Person Behind the Visit
January 29 - Posted by Michael King
With the erosion of keyword intelligence and the move to strings-not-things for the user, Google is pushing all marketers to focus more on their target audience. This post will teach you how to understand that audience, the future of Google, and how to build data-driven personas step by step.

10. Panda 4.0, Payday Loan 2.0 & eBay's Very Bad Day
May 21 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Preliminary analysis of the Panda 4.0 and Payday Loan 2.0 updates, major algorithm flux on May 19th, and a big one-day rankings drop for eBay.

3. Top YouMoz Blog posts by unique visits

One of our favorite parts of the Moz community is the YouMoz Blog, where our community members can submit their own posts for potential publishing here on our site. We're constantly impressed by what we're sent. These 10 posts all received such high praise that they were promoted to the main Moz Blog, but they all started out as YouMoz posts.

1. Make Facebook's Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You
January 23 - Posted by Chad Wittman
Recently, many page admins have been experiencing a significant decrease in Total Reach—specifically, organic reach. For pages that want to keep their ad budget as low as possible, maximizing organic reach is vital. To best understand how to make a change like this work for you, and not against you, we need to examine what happened—and what you can do about it.

2. Parallax Scrolling Websites and SEO - A Collection of Solutions and Examples
April 01 - Posted by Carla Dawson
I have observed that there are many articles that say parallax scrolling is not ideal for search engines. Parallax Scrolling is a design technique and it is ideal for search engines if you know how to apply it. I have collected a list of great tutorials and real SEO-friendly parallax websites to help the community learn how to use both techniques together.

3. (Provided): 10 Ways to Prove SEO Value in Google Analytics
February 25 - Posted by Jeff Sauer
We and our clients have relied on keyword reports for so long that we're now using (not provided) as a crutch. This post offers 10 ways you can use Google Analytics to prove your SEO value now that those keywords are gone.

4. How to Set Up and Use Twitter Lead Generation Cards in Your Tweets for Free!
May 07 - Posted by Dana Tan
Working as an in-house SEO strategist for a small business forces me to get "scrappy" every day with tools and techniques. I'm constantly on the lookout for an opportunity that can help my company market to broader audiences for less money. Here's how to set up your Twitter Cards for free!

5. 75 Content Starters for Any Industry
February 06 - Posted by Amanda Gallucci
Suffering from blank page anxiety? Before you go on the hunt for inspiration all over the Internet and elsewhere, turn to the resources around you. Realize that you can create exceptional content with what you already have at hand.

6. The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links
June 08 - Posted by Nicole Kohler
For those of us who are trying to earn links for our clients, receiving a nofollow link can feel like a slap in the face. But these links have hidden powers that make them just as important as followed ones. Here's why nofollow links are more powerful than you might think.

7. A Startling Case Study of Manual Penalties and Negative SEO
March 17 - Posted by Yonatan Dotan
One day in my inbox I found the dreaded notice from Google that our client had a site-wide manual penalty for unnatural inbound links. We quickly set up a call and went through the tooth-rattling ordeal of explaining to our client that they weren't even ranked for their brand name. Organic traffic dropped by a whopping 94% - and that for a website that gets 66% of its traffic from Google-based organic search.

8. How PornHub Is Bringing its A-Game (SFW)
July 23 - Posted by Javier Sanz
Despite dealing with a sensitive subject, PornHub is doing a great job marketing itself. This (safe-for-work) post takes a closer look at what they are doing.

9. Storytelling Through Data: A New Inbound Marketing & SEO Report Structure
January 07 - Posted by Aaron Friedman
No matter what business you are in, it's a pretty sure thing that someone is going to want to monitor how efficiently and productively you are working. Being able to show these results over time is crucial to maintaining the health of the long term relationship.

10. The Art of Thinking Sideways: Content Marketing for "Boring" Businesses
April 08 - Posted by Robin Swire
In this article, I'll examine the art of thinking sideways for one of the slightly more tricky marketing clients I've worked with. I hope that this will provide an insight for fellow content marketers and SEOs in similar scenarios.

4. Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up

These 10 posts were well enough received that liked that quite a few readers took the time to engage with them, logging in to give their stamp of approval. Whiteboard Fridays are always a hit, and two of them managed to make this list after having been live for less than a month.

3. Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines
July 23 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Recently, Moz contributor Scott Wyden, a photographer in New Jersey, received a warning in his Google Webmaster Tools about some links that violated Google's Quality Guidelines. One example was from moz.com.

4. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

5. Thank You for 10 Incredible Years
October 06 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
It's been 10 amazing years since Rand started the blog that would turn into SEOmoz and then Moz, and we never could have come this far without you all. You'll find letters of appreciation from Rand and Sarah in this post (along with a super-cool video retrospective!), and from all of us at Moz, thank you!

8. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

9. Does SEO Boil Down to Site Crawlability and Content Quality? - Whiteboard Friday
July 11 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
What does good SEO really mean these days? Rand takes us beyond crawlability and content quality for a peek inside the art and science of the practice.

10. How to Avoid the Unrealistic Expectations SEOs Often Create - Whiteboard Friday
December 12 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Making promises about SEO results too often leads to broken dreams and shredded contracts. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows us how to set expectations that lead to excitement but help prevent costly misunderstandings.

5. Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments

While the discussions can take a big chunk out of an already busy day, the conversations we get to have with our community members (and the conversations they have with each other) in the comments below our posts is absolutely one of our favorite parts of the blog. These 10 posts garnered quite a bit of discussion (some with a fair amount of controversy), and are fascinating to follow.

1. Take the SEO Expert Quiz and Rule the Internet
May 28 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
You are master of the keyword. You create 1,000 links with a single tweet. Google engineers ask for your approval before updating their algorithm. You, my friend, are an SEO Expert. Prove it by taking our new SEO Expert Quiz.

2. The Rules of Link Building - Whiteboard Friday
April 04 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Google is increasingly playing the referee in the marketing game, and many marketers are simply leaving instead of playing by the rules. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard takes a time-out to explain a winning strategy.

4. New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool
March 20 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's 2014 redesign had a big impact on search result titles, cutting them off much sooner. This post includes a title preview tool and takes a data-driven approach to finding the new limit.

5. SEO Teaching: Should SEO Be Taught at Universities?
October 09 - Posted by Carla Dawson
Despite the popularity and importance of SEO, the field has yet to gain significant traction at the university level other than a few courses here and there offered as part of a broader digital marketing degree. The tide could be turning, however slowly.

6. 12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
March 11 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.

7. The Broken Art of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric that Could Save Us All)
July 22 - Posted by Dan Shure
Company blogging is broken. We're tricking ourselves into believing they're successful while ignoring the one signal we have that tells us whether they're actually working.

8. Real-World Panda Optimization - Whiteboard Friday
August 01 - Posted by Michael Cottam
From the originality of your content to top-heavy posts, there's a lot that the Panda algorithm is looking for. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Michael Cottam explains what these things are, and more importantly, what we can do to be sure we get the nod from this particular bear.

9. Ways to Proactively Welcome Women Into Online Marketing
September 17 - Posted by Erica McGillivray
SEO may be a male-dominated industry, but let's step out of our biases and work hard to welcome women, and marketers of all stripes, into our community.

10. More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
October 21 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can't read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.

6. Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains

What, you thought you'd get to the bottom of the post without seeing a traditional SEO metric? =)

2. Panda 4.0, Payday Loan 2.0 & eBay's Very Bad Day
May 21 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Preliminary analysis of the Panda 4.0 and Payday Loan 2.0 updates, major algorithm flux on May 19th, and a big one-day rankings drop for eBay.

3. Personas: The Art and Science of Understanding the Person Behind the Visit
January 29 - Posted by Michael King
With the erosion of keyword intelligence and the move to strings-not-things for the user, Google is pushing all marketers to focus more on their target audience. This post will teach you how to understand that audience, the future of Google, and how to build data-driven personas step by step.

5. The New Link Building Survey 2014 - Results
July 16 - Posted by James Agate
How has the marketing industry changed its views of link building since last year? James Agate of Skyrocket SEO is back with the results of a brand new survey.

6. Google's 2014 Redesign: Before and After
March 13 - Posted by Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Google's SERP and ad format redesign may finally be rolling out, after months of testing. Before we lose the old version forever, here's the before-and-after of every major vertical that's changed.

7. Google Announces the End of Author Photos in Search: What You Should Know
June 26 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Many of us have been constantly advising webmasters to connect their content writers with Google authorship, and it came as a shock when John Mueller announced Google will soon drop authorship photos from regular search results. Let's examine what this means.

8. The Greatest Misconception in Content Marketing - Whiteboard Friday
April 25 - Posted by Rand Fishkin
Great content certainly helps business, but it isn't as simple as "publish, share, convert new customers." In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains what's really going on.

9. The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
May 20 - Posted by Oli Gardner
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.

10. Your Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet: Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird
June 11 - Posted by Marie Haynes
Do you have questions about the Panda algorithm, the Penguin algorithm, or Hummingbird? This guide explains in lay terms what each of these Google algorithm changes is about and how to improve your site so that it looks better in the eyes of the big G.

7. Top comments from our community by number of thumbs up

These 10 comments were the most thumbed-up of any on our blogs this year, offering voices of reason that stand out from the crowd.

1. Marie Haynes | July 23
Commented on: Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines

2. Brian Dean | September 30
Commented on: The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

3. Martin Pezet | July 22
Commented on: The Broken Art of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric that Could Save Us All)

4. Danny Sullivan | July 23
Commented on: Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines

5. Cyrus Shepard | October 21
Commented on: More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO

6. Sarah Bird | September 17
Commented on: Ways to Proactively Welcome Women Into Online Marketing

7. Rand Fishkin | July 04
Commented on: 5 Fashion Hacks for the Modern Male Marketer - Whiteboard Friday

8. Martin Pezet | September 30
Commented on: The Myth of Google's 200 Ranking Factors

9. Jeff Ferguson | October 24
Commented on: Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content - Whiteboard Friday

10. Robert Duckers | March 20
Commented on: New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool

8. Top commenters from our community by total thumbs up

We calculated this one a bit differently this year. In the past, we've shown the top community members by sheer number of comments. We don't want, however, to imply that being prolific is necessarily good within itself. So, we added up all the thumbs-up that each comment on our blogs has received, and figured out which community members racked up the most thumbs over the course of the year. (We've intentionally omitted staff members and associates from this list, as they'd stack the deck pretty heavily!)

The graphics to the right of each community member show the number of comments they've left on blog posts in 2014 as well as the total number of thumbs up those comments have received.

This list is truly an illustration of how amazing the Moz community is. This site would hardly be anything without all of you, and we so appreciate your involvement on such a regular basis!