MozCon 2012 Live Blog - Day One

At the last marketing conference I attended (SEMpdx’s Searchfest in Portland in February) I walked away with 7 pages of handwritten notes after a single day. But, handwritten notes don’t do me or anyone else any good, they just get locked away in the file cabinet. So for MozCon I’m going to publish my notes here. I’m not promising a hardcore live blogging session, but I’ll publish notes on everything that I feel is worth writing down.

You can also find me tweeting @KaneJamison – I’ll try to embed any important tweets from myself and others into this post.

Next Days: MozCon 2012 Day Two Recap & MozCon 2012 Day Three Recap

Other Live Blogging Sessions and Recaps I’m Aware Of:

• @RuthBurr, SEOMoz’s inhouse SEO, has some excellent tweets coming out fast and furious from each post, definitely worth following her to get some quicker updates since wi-fi takes awhile to get updates out.
• All presentations from the weekend can be downloaded here: http://www.seomoz.org/mozcon-live/agenda
• Seattle Times did a MozCon write up based upon Rand’s opening speech today.
• Full list of tools mentioned today from Thomas Hogenhaven.
• http://www.seo.com/blog/mozcon-2012-recap-community-as-inbound/
• More recaps and liveblogs to be added here when I find some.

Wednesday, July 25

MozCon Intro – Rand Fishkin

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/82fed67adbe11baa87d6.pptx

Description: Rand kicks off our conference, gives some hints about the future of our tools, and will probably make your head spin with awesome.

Rand’s announcements:

1. Announcement #1: Inbound.org job board: http://jobs.inbound.org, coupon code for job postings: mozcon
2. Announcement #2: there will be more SeoMoz product updates in next 30 days, not to be announced right now it seems.
3. Announcement #3: new personal blog for Rand: Moz.com/rand
4. Announcement #4: Rand’s wife is doing great after her surgery. (congrats guys!)

Also, a translation service I need to look into: CMS > TMS

35 Ways to Get Links – Paddy Moogan

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/ef516d911621c21d8076.pptx

Description: Paddy dives into 35 ways to get links. He goes out of the box, around the universe, and all the way back to MozCon.

I marked my favorite tips in bold:

1. bookbait – get contributors for a book you release, same as a crowd sourced blog post.
2. embed code within embed code… get embeds from your embeds. http://dis.tl/mozcon-embed
3. contact websites using your photos and ask for photo credit – high conversion rate
4. link footprints for competitors. Find their guest posts and see where else they’ve used to
5. OSE > Excel > google custom search engine – search your competitors links
6. blogdash.com, blogger linkup, and guestr.com for guest post opportunities
7. Offer paywall access in exchange for links. Useful for large publishing or member only websites. e.g. seomoz pro perks page
8. tout app to find email contact on a page, rapportive to guess emails
9. buzzstream – use RSS module to see recent posts from prospect and mention that in your pitch email. Easy way to customize those outreach emails. don’t use long ago posts. buzzstream also good for tracking conversion rate of email templates.
10. Make photos embeddable
11. http://www.dis.tl/moz-demo
12. http://www.dis.tl/moz-script
13. take bloggers to an event, pay for it, in exchange for writing it.
14. competitors doing badge link bait?

• footprint: “part of the /brandname/ blogger network”
• analyze that with google reverse image search and reach out, they already know how to use badges

1. bring offline online. example given was a clothing store with social stats on the hangars of the coats they sell…
2. feature local bloggers in the window of your storefront with their URL as egobait
3. ask bloggers what content they want before you create it, create the content (like an infographic), and feature them as contributors to get buy in and their social shares.
4. find writers and bloggers on twitter using follower wonk. use bio footprints like “writer for” “blogger”, etc.
5. boomerang. schedule emails for accurate timezone for better conversion rates when link building for clients in a different timezone
6. For high competition sites get links to profile pages and team pages on the website, especially when the person at the company is quoted
7. follow up with tweets and social shares of your content and see if the person wants to embed the content on their site. way better conversion rates than cold emails.
8. IFTTT for hashtag: #prrequest “keyword” – way better than simply using google alerts. also try #journorequest
9. ecommerce sites: create fake products as linkbait for april fool’s. “unicorn meat” for example
10. pay your writer’s to guest blog elsewhere on your behalf. pay more for the extra effort if necessary. it’s a freelance linkbuilding team paid on commission…
11. sleepingtime.org – use to figure out when to tweet at someone.
12. *Can’t publish this one per Paddy’s request *
13. site:meetup.com “blogger” “seattle” “keyword” or just site:meetup.com “blogger” – go socialize with bloggers.
14. blogger competition, but instead of using the “link to me” as a way to enter the contest, have then nominate 5 other bloggers and have the “initiative” (aka linkbuilding) going further.
15. *Can’t publish this one per Paddy’s request *
16. 2nd tier broken link building
17. create a spotify playlist for your niche
18. tweet and eat – incentivize sharing a page – the more everyone tweets the cheaper the price becomes. case study at simplyzesty.com/… tweet and eat cheap
19. add a website field in your contact/signup form and if they have a site, ask for a link
20. konami code JS as linkbait – script is free to get, and there’s a WP plugin. Change the konami code every day to give away a different discount code
21. URGHARO “keyword” <– another ifttt monitor
22. http://dis.tl/link-recipes
23. Infogr.am for infographic design – do this quick and agile, get links, and then get client/boss buy-in to spend budget on a real designer.
24. Amazon wishlist – buy people presents
25. Find outreach targets using amazon reviewers with profile pages

• Search query: site:www.amazon.com/…..profile/ “web page:” “email:” “Travel”

1. Send physical products – find pinterest likes and send that product/inspiration to them. Kotex video used as an example.
2. dis.tl/moz-guest – custom search engine that only finds places that accept guest posts.
3. Not sure if I’m supposed to tweet this link, but it’s a list of 1000 sites accepting guest blogs and their emails

Other good takeaways from Paddy:

• Getting client buy-in – compare them to their competitors to spur change or acceptance of a tactic
• Not all linkbait will fly, so getting buy-in for 4-6 pieces of link bait for a client upfront is a great way to set expectations

Build the Agile SEO Framework – Jon Colman

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/387a93f89740b1ce3ba0.pptx

Description: Between changes to Google’s algo, technology, and customer usage, how do you keep up? Hear how REI uses agile to embrace change and integrate marketing with development efforts to build a network of support.

Jon’ presentation was great – very high level so not a lot of “bullet point” style notes aside from these:

• Good agile meeting template:

1. what happened yesterday?
2. what’s up today?
3. what impediments do we have?

• Also, have everyone stand to keep meetings short
• Meeting cost tracker: http://Bit.ly/meetcost
• Stop chasing perfection & create bias towards shipping
• bit.ly/agilewinsHere’s Jonathon’s slideshare:[slideshare id=13751897&doc=agile-marketing-principles-hacks-mozcon-120725073108-phpapp01]

Community as Inbound – Jen Lopez

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/69ed6a18ca1bac4d59d4.pptx

Description: As a champion of community, Jen believes in the power of the people and what they can do for your business. Whether you’re selling hammers, cupcakes, or insurance, find and embrace your community.

Good community knowledge from Jennita – quick takeaways that I liked:

• Community is a team sport – everyone needs to get involved in social and customer service and managing community
• Test community like everything else – what works at times of day and how each social network reacts to what you’re posting as well as how often you post.

How Relationships Drive Link Building – Jon Henshaw

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/0f2ea5af20a39db6bfc4.pdf

Description: Worried about unnatural links? Build them by creating relationships instead and get tips on nurturing these relationships long-term.

• Using Full contact API for contact details
• Help others <-> get links from karma, mostly when you’re doing it for the right reasons
• I had to miss some of Jon’s presentation to get some client work done, anyone else have notes that I can link to, or that they’ll publish here for a link?

Badass Excel Tips and Tricks for Your Data – Annie Cushing

Instruction Blog Post Here – Password is mozcon: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/excel-instructions-for-mozcon

Description: Take your everyday data and turn it into comprehensive analytics applicable to all internet marketers. Even if you don’t love analytics.

Annie focused on a live demo of Excel functions – great format.

• First thing Annie does is get rid of grid lines…
• Right click on ribbon toolbar to add anything to Quick Access Toolbar (up at the very top of Windows Excel).
• Annie always formats as table to make things easy, check her SEL post on the topic here: http://searchengineland.com/a-marketers-guide-to-table-formatting-in-excel-124944
• Lots of ways to use control and shift keys in excel to select data faster
• Ctrl + 1 will load up formatting options for whatever you’ve selected.
• ‏@ruthburr: Add links to tabs w/in your Excel doc: crtrl+K and select “Place in Document” @AnnieCushing #Mozcon
• “It’s going to get really ugly before it gets pretty…”
• Add a data series to a chart after you’ve already created it by

1. Select the data, click the chart, then paste it in? Does that really work?

• Using hash value from screaming frog to conditional format for duplicate values to find duplicate content. <-Sweet tip right there!

Web Spam Research: Good Robots vs Bad Robots – Matt Peters

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/386da4bf852cbe97325c.pptx

Description: Matt goes on a wild ride to find the interesting features necessary to algorithmically classify a site as spam or non-spam. Will the good robots finally win?

Lots of excellent charts featuring correlations between moztrust, mozrank, and other Moz metrics and the likelihood that the page is penalized or banned by Google. Seems that Moztrust is the best metric named thus far for correlating the two. More on here after I get a chance to look at the slides deeper.

This matches my takeaway sentiment exactly:

Beyond Link Building: Real Companies Do Real Things – Wil Reynolds

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/5a22179c650880e0ed14.pptx

Description: 25+ creative ways to break out of “traditional” link building and start doing the things that attract real links, influence your organization, and prevent BIG screw ups (as Wil shares some of his).[slideshare id=13759268&doc=mozcon-2012-120725201944-phpapp02]

• I saw Wil do a similar presentation at Searchfest in February, and this felt like the “6 months later, #penguin, #booya” follow up presentation. I mean that in a good way – it was a good reiteration of ways to continue doing real company shit, aka #RCS.
• Made my day year to see Wil give me a shoutout for my Link Building For Local Events post on Moz from last month. That slide is gettin’ framed on my wall.
• “I didn’t go to college to be a dofollow link finder.” -Wil Reynolds
• Clients sitting on interesting data <– You should want to work with them.
• j.mp/PdH1dc <– link to #RCS video from Philadelphia (good video, highly worth your time (especially if you didn’t make it to MozCon)
• Followerwonk -> Excel for outreach prospects. They already follow you…
• No followers? Do it for a competitor doing good marketing already.
• [companyname] + event  <– great way to find past coverage of events for your existing clients – awesome addition that I didn’t cover in my SEOMoz post.
• “stop hitting enter on google” – let google instant teach you something – when you see 10 suggests, you’re on to something
• bit.ly/conversion-and-links <- @jasonacidre
• “There will be turbulence…” as people switch over to doing #RCS instead of focusing on Pagerank and other outdated SEO thought processes.

Great tweets:

Social Tools & Data Mining: Making a Case for Content Strategy – Mike King

Download Presentation Here: https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/04cb1d31223c8efcf4f3.pptx

Description: Mike uses some of his favorite tools and some new ones to show how content is where it’s at when it comes to your business.

Mike’s Opening video that he rapped in front of:

• Announced: http://brokenlinkindex.com/ – an index of broken links on the web. Should be a great supplemental tool to your existing broken link building strategies, but I can see some new twists getting generated once people have a chance to play with it.
• Announced: http://authora.org/ – a tool for searching for Google+ authors

Kane Jamison

Kane is the founder of Content Harmony, a content marketing platform that helps you build better content briefs. Schedule a demo to chat with him personally about your team's content workflow.

Website: https://www.kanejamison.com

Twitter: @kanejamison

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