- Driving Visitors to Your Blog/Site
Possibly the most valuable (or, at least, oft-utilized) part about YOUmoz is its ability to entice SEOmoz readers over to your site. If you write something great, or, better yet, 3-4 great posts, you'll find that readers will be hungry for more. Great content demands attention and the readers here at SEOmoz are some of the most participatory on the web - if you write a few great posts, they're very likely to come to your blog and subscribe, knowing that your content is especially worthwhile. BTW - So will the mozzers; and, when we love a blog, we often link over to it in our posts (particularly the roundups) :) - Building Your Personal Brand in the SEO World
Through contributions at SEOmoz and YOUmoz, several names in the search world have become more visible. You can follow in this path - contributing great posts that can help to make your name or your company's brand more visible to marketers, technologists & the rest of the wide audience here on SEOmoz. - Soliciting Input from Fellow Search Marketers
As I've done in the past and many folks have done at YOUmoz, you can leverage the ability to contribute posts as a way to request the input of the highly participatory community on the site. If you're confused about how to best tackle a specific issue, need assistance in identifying good resources on a subject or simply want a broad group discussion around an important topic, SEO/YOUmoz is a superb resource. The quality of input here often exceeds major search forums, though I still think there's excellent advice to be had in this arena at Cre8asite forums as well. - Exposing Flaws or Faults in Major Websites
Not surprisingly, with SEOmoz garnering a wide swath of readership in the webdev and web marketing world, a post here can influence or, at the least, attract the attention of folks who actually work on the product/site/service you're concerned about. I'm always shocked when I do a post on something from companies like Wufoo, Reddit or NY Magazine and then get an actual response from someone who works there (usually through email). - Linkbaiting/Viral Marketing
Since SEOmoz posts, like those at other well-read blogs, are paid attention to by so many influencers (bloggers, journalists, site owners, social media enthusiasts), a post on an exciting new project, site, feature, news item, etc. can help to drive serious link love to that source. While YOUmoz currently has nofollow on outbound links (to discourage posting for link purposes only), we'll be removing those nofollows if the blog post makes it to the SEOmoz blog (currently a task Rebecca handles). Thus, even if you're getting buried at Digg, SEOmoz can give you the ability to help market to a desirable audience. Obviously, since Rebecca's hand-editing the submissions, we won't allow wholesale shilling, but we're also not nearly as anti-marketing as a place like Digg. - Making Your Profile at SEOmoz More Valuable
Profiles at SEOmoz appear to be used for everything from link love (remember that if you earn 100 mozpoints, we remove the nofollow from your profile page) to reputation management - user pages appear to rank very well at both Google & Yahoo! And, if you're itching to get onto the top 50 list, YOUmoz posts earn between 6-30 thumbs. - Attracting the Attention of the Engines
It's true - SEOmoz is read by lots of folks at the search engines. Now, of course, this certainly has its drawbacks, as YOUmoz & SEOmoz are probably not great places for discussing the latest exploits available to black & gray hats. It also restricts me from publicly discussing the best text link brokers or less-than-pure-white link building services. However, it does afford folks like yourself the ability to expose major issues to the engineers and analysts at Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft & Ask. I'm not just talking about Matt Cutts, whom I'm personally shocked has time to read the blog (certainly flattered though) or Susan Moskwa (Hi, Susan!). At nearly every conference I attend, I'll find folks who work at search engines that have SEOmoz in their feedreader. Just a warning, though, don't title your posts "Hey Tim Mayer, why don't you answer my emails?" That's probably not going to get posted (unless Matt Cutts is the author) :)
Hopefully, these strategies will help to make your YOUmoz optimization a little easier. And (thanks to a suggestion from the crew) as an added refresher/bonus, I'll walk you through how to make a YOUmoz post (because every Sunday post needs a cartoon, right?):
STEP 1: Decide on a Topic
Your topical focus will have a lot to do with your personal needs - do you want to share a great new technique for optimization, social media participation, analytics, landing page design or writing better ad copy? Maybe you're interested in sharing your latest website launch and getting critical feedback from the community - you can show off what you've built, so long as you're creating value for the readers by also sharing how you did it and how you expect to successfully market it. You might even want to share some news that no one's discovered, or an angle that few are discussing. The sky's the limit on blog content, so long as it's useful to the SEOmoz audience. Imagine yourself reading your post - if you can picture yourself smiling, shaking and nodding your head and thinking "Wow. This is great stuff," the post is probably a hit.
FYI - You'll find a place to author posts on your sidebar once you're logged in, like this:
STEP 2: Create Graphics
SEOmoz doesn't currently support uploading your graphics or images to our server directly (too much risk of malicious behavior), so you can use free image hosting services, Flickr, or your own site to hold graphics. I highly recommend graphics because they make a post so much more interesting to read. Even a screenshot of a website, a search query or an analytics graph can make a huge difference.
My typical process is simply taking a screenshot (on 99% of Windows boxes this is done by holding alt+print screen), pasting it into Photoshop, and cutting or reducing to size - Photoshop's image reduction usually produces fairly clean, readable images. The maximum pixel width on SEOmoz is 500 pixels, so keep that in mind as you're producing graphics.
STEP 3: Create a Title & Select a Category
As with any social media site, blog or newspaper headline, the title is going to influence the number of readers who are drawn to your post. Since so many SEOmoz readers use feeds or the tracker (SEOmoz & YOUmoz each have their own) to choose what to read, you're best off writing a title that captures attention and accurately describes the contents. And yes, on occassion, Rebecca will re-write a title if she thinks yours is just awful. We'll also re-clasify posts if we feel you're not submitting to the appropriate category, so don't worry too much about which one to choose.
STEP 4: Write Your Post
Writing quality is everything - if you can engage your readers effectively and create that head-nodding, gotta-share-this-with-my-buddies feeling, your post will produce exceptional returns. Watch the master - Brian Clark - at work to see how it's done.
STEP 5: Submit to YOUmoz
The submission process is simple - just enter your text (you can use the WYSIWYG editor or submit in HTML) and hit submit. You can even save your posts as drafts and come back to them later. If you are authoring your post inside YOUmoz, I recommend frequently hitting "save" so as not to risk losing your precious work.
STEP 6: SEOmoz Reviews
In somewhere between 1-30 hours, Rebecca or myself will read and approve or reject your post. We do get quite a bit of spam at times, and we're also commonly rejecting very poorly written entries (apologies to some of our ESL submitters - we appreciate your work, but it's very tough for our audience to comprehend the writing style at times). If we like the post, we send it over to YOUmoz - it's only if we absolutely love it to death that it goes straight to the main blog. After a day or two in YOUmoz, if your entry gets lots of great thumbs, comments and attention, we'll promote it to the main blog. Don't be discouraged if you don't make the main blog, though, we have very high standards, as you can see from the ratio of promoted to non-promoted (about 1/25) and YOUmoz itself is a valuable marketing and information tool.
That's All!
Just like any other UGC or social website, SEO/YOUmoz provides value largely in relation to the effort you put into it. A lousy post that you threw together in 10 minutes that looks more like a question you'd ask at a forum won't provide much value (and is likely to be tossed in Rebecca's trash bin). However, top notch posts that make it to the blog and attract links, readership, comments and attention to your site/issue/discovery can have remarkable effects.
Of course, if you have any suggestion or questions about YOUmoz, feel free to ask them in the comments below. If it relates to your particular submission, you can feel free to email Rebecca, too.
UPDATE: Matt's made a quick change to YOUmoz and now all posts authored by members who have more than 100 mozpoints total will not include "nofollow" on outbound links, just like profile page links. If you've ever wanted some link juice from SEOmoz, now's your chance to earn it :)
I'm a busy (lazy) bastard, so I only have one YOUmoz entry (hell, I don't even have a blog).
However, I do read YOUmoz entries and I have to say, the good ones really stand out because... there are a lot of mediocre ones. If that's too negative, let me rephrase.
Like most online readers, I'm a scanner. I scan the YOUmoz headlines and I'll probably read less than 1 in 5 YOUmoz posts. That is, the title is incredibly important to converting readers.
I think a lot of us have read Brian Clark's stuff as Rand suggested, because a lot of YOUmoz posts look like this:
The problem is, if every YOUmoz writer creates headlines like these, then no one is really making their article stand out.
Take a step back and analyze the metagame - look at what what the community trend is and do something that stands out. It is reasonable to assume YOUmoz writers are better-than-average copywriters, so how do you differentiate your work?
Sorry for the bluntness, but I want YOUmoz to be even better than it already is.
Fantastic advice, shor. To be honest, we haven't received many YOUmoz posts lately, so I been a bit more lenient with what gets published. (Don't interpret that as a mediocrity free-for-all!) I'd love to see more high quality, engaging posts get submitted--they're much more interesting to read, they always garner more thumbs and comments, and many of them get promoted to the main blog.
Good stuff shor - when will be seeing your next entry?
;)
Probably when the orbits of shor, alcohol and seo next collide.
(blame everything on alcohol)
ahhh, alcohol.... sigh
I was going to make a comment about "I wonder if Shor is Pat in disguise" but felt it would be unfair to automatically associate Pat with alcohol..
More fool me!
;)
shor, comments like that aren't too far off from being an article in their own. Good stuff man! If only you had a comment feed I could subscribe too.
Good one Shor.
Shor - I think it's remarkable that your comment got more thumbs up than the original article (17 vs 10 right now). Is this a record for the most thumbed-up comment?
Although it took me a few tries to get it right, my one post that went from YOUmoz to the main blog resulted in a call from Forbes.com, a ton of traffic, and name recognition in my own professonal network (a CEO at a local company I know mentioned my name to his CFO, who it turns out reads my posts/comments on SEOmoz). I'm also an inch taller and my hair seems to be thicker and fuller.
Pete I'm impressed and since I remember the article the attention was well deserved. Congrats.
Rand thanks for putting that up, great article.
I want to add a ten things, most of them topical....
1) Hosting (on your own site) at least one image per youmoz post is great because you get actual stats about how many people are reading your entry. (everytime that page is seen, the image is loaded, so therefore you get the stats.)
2) Hundreds of thousands of people have read my four little ole Youmoz posts. Rand, if you want to put up the numbers of views that my custom search article got, I have no problem with that at all (It is a number with a whole bunch of alot of all sorts of zeros in it.).
3) There was someone who asked me in the comments of a Youmoz article "Why did you post such a useful and valuable article on someone elses site instead of your own? I love it that this post answers that question quite well. All the things you mentioned are great reasons to add content to other sites (like YOUmoz) than your own. It is a great chance to Spread your Sweetness.
4) I would recommend that people really spend alot of time and create quality articles to submit to Youmoz, in fact, I would say the more amazing your article is, the MORE reason you have to submit it to youmoz. Youmoz article enjoy a wide readership, much, much wider, than most of our personal blogs or websites. Get that quality writing out in front of as many eyes in the industry as you can... this is what Youmoz does. Watch your sweetness spreading like fire accross the web!
5) The nofollows do seem silly on posts that are reviewed and edited. I would say that if there is any kind of iffy linking behavior in a post it should be sent back to the author with some boogers on it.
6) PROMOTE your articles!!!! Link to them. Just a couple links to a domain as strong as seomoz has enormous impact. You will be amazed. Write quality article. Submit to Youmoz. Link to it. Tell others to link to it. Make it so damn great that it has to get linked to.
7) Is it just me or are my eyes just ungodly luminous and blue in my video? The amount that I am gorgeous seems huge. Oh, I mean, um... great point about saving often as you write Rand, I lost an article once because I didn't save... wah... Blue. Eyes. Wow.
8) Thank you Rebecca for the time you take on looking the entries over and choosing them. You have constantly done a great job and I appreciate that alot.
9) I have not been able to participate as much in these last three weeks or so, but I read just aboutevery word, and I am getting to a point where I will have more time to flirt and be a smartass, I mean... participate more soon.
10) SEOmoz rocks!
Well, that comment just about summed it all up.
I don't know, It could have used a bit more about how my eyes are magical pools of wonder and goodness...
Well said. As for (3), some of us also aren't full time SEMs. YOUmoz has been a great way to test the waters with the fruits of my SEO self-education, material which wouldn't normally be appropriate for my usability blog.
As one who is now burning the candle at both ends, and sometimes in the middle, I certainly haven't been as active here as I was or would like, whether that be commenting on the main blog, or commenting or submitting to the YOUmoz side. Unfortunately, YOUmoz in any form has really taken back burner.
But every so often I go on a blog-blur reading spree and try to get through and hopefully caught back up. If you've limited yourself to the main blog, then hopefully this post will encourage you to take a walk on the other side. There really have been some fantastic posts, and don't think that if they don't get promoted that they aren't valuable.
And as a contributor, it is a great way to share some ideas, and get a little feedback... sometimes, just like on the main blog, the main post is really just a question or idea that serves as a catalyst for the real magic that comes out of the comments.
One of the great things about the SEOmoz blogs, is that they become conversations, more so than many blogs... and sometimes even more than some forums. You quickly realize what a passionate audience this is and it becomes a virtual coffee table (or bar stools) with everyone sitting around captivated and wanting to take part.
Oh yeah, and getting a post promoted to the main blog rocks!
Rand listed a lot of great ideas and reasons for writing a YOUmoz post, and they are all very good and valuable ones.
But I'd like to toss one in that he left off. Consider YOUmoz an opportunity to give back. Not necessarily even to SEOmoz, which I think many of us do feel a sense to do so anyway, but think bigger... a chance to give back to the SEO community.
We all come together within this community, where in many ways we are often competing to some extent with those around us. Yet, it is hard to find another community where so much is shared and given to help each other learn and grow. Sure, lots of industries and professions have conventions and trade shows, but this is a community that gives and assists each other every single day, 24/7, 365, all over the world. Stop and think about that for just a second. And for what it's worth, I think you'll get more out of it than the effort you put in.
And don't think that what you write has to be a "my site" or "YOUmoz" kind of choice. The writing I do on my own site is much more geared towards clients and potential clients, where the writing I do on YOUmoz is much more geared toward peers and the SEO community. This way, even if I have a general topic that I think could work for both, it is much more likely that I'll write two different posts to account for the different audiences.
And once you start, you might find yourself contributing to even more places. Just this month, I started writing a column for a local business magazine... that only lives offline. So, who knows where YOUmoz might lead you!
Identity, great points. I think that's probably the biggest reason I wrote my YOUmoz post - to give back to the community. SEOmoz has taught me so much over the past two years.
"...apologies to some of our ESL submitters - we appreciate your work, but it's very tough for our audience to comprehend the writing style at times"
R & R--I'm an ESL teacher and regular reader of SEOmoz. I would be willing to rework any posts you get from English as a Second Language folks. If you find an article that is good but hard to read, email it to me, and I'll try my best to make it understandable while at the same time keeping the author's voice and thoughts.
Christina
That's an incredibly generous offer. We may take you up on it!
Hey - I am an ESL submitter! I guess I am really lucky to have one of my only two Youmoz post promoted to the main blog :-)
Tinker you are wonderful. Nice offer.
Greetings, fellow ESL teacher :)
I'd also like to add that I tend to reject posts that were pasted straight from Word and haven't been formatted at all. I really don't have much time to format your post and break it up into bite-sized paragraphs, so please ensure that your posts are easily readable (concise paragraphs, bullet points, numbered lists, etc) before submitting them. :)
Hey Rebecca, can you give us any further real guidelines on what you do want, what you expect and what you don't want?.. Like a link to guidelines for newbies or other folks who want to make sure they post applicable stuff. maybe in the header paragraph on the YouMoz page? Just to clarify stuff and make it easier for SEOMoz to get what you want, while making it more obvious what you might not be interested in, and ensuring consistent quality of posts in terms of content length, limitations, etc etc? I don't see a real need yet, but as y'all continue to grow like bamboo in Africa, it might be an issue? I know it's an informal area, but editing might become more of an issue ... Just throwing it out there :)
Check out this post I wrote about some YOUmoz tips and guidelines:
https://www.seomoz.org/blog/youmoz-revisited...
Thank you... yep that should do it :)
Hey everyone, I modified the YOUmoz code today so that if you have more than 100 mozpoints nofollows are not added to the links in your posts.
Note that this only affects future posts, all your old entries will still have nofollows in them.
Now that all that coding is done can you please put on a happy face Frankenstien-boy?
hahah
NO
You wouldn't like him when he's angry...
Meh, he's angry most every day. I think we'd be shocked if he were happy at work. ;P
Just give him a cookie and point him back towards his desk.
Great move. Thanks Matt.
With a whopping 4 YOUmoz posts my experience shows better click-through traffic commenting on the regular blog. The other posints are great though and right on.
Something I have noticed is the YOUmoz section actually has a higher PR than the regular blog! Rand, since YOUmoz is pre-human-moderated I suggest taking out nofollows if the post gets 10+ thumbs up. Posters that give exceptional quality should get at least one good link back - don'tchathink?
I know this would promote gaming the system and rep-whoring but since the posts are pre-approved I think those problems would be minimal.
This would entice more entries. I think YOUmoz is a great idea that just isn't catching on... or at least not as well as I hoped.
Maybe a post that gets 20+ thumbs up could get a free month of premium membership?
I don't know but the work to put together a quality post that could go on your own site should have a better reward than what is perceived.
MHO
I like your inputs remccarley. There are people, who ventured into SEO business without much $, but they have great talents and are able to write well. Offering them a free one-month membership after 20+ thumbs up sound good.
A cheaper way maybe is to have a promise that rand or rebecca or any qualified team member from seomoz to visit his/her website and give valuable input (maybe just one post, I know you guys are busy) at their blog. They will love it.
Just another MHO.
Randall - actually, that's a very good idea. Since the posts are human moderated, I think we might actually consider removing the nofollow's entirely. Originally, we were worried about posts on there appearing solely for link love, but I agree that since we're reviewing them manually, it's hard to justify the nofollow, whose real intention has been to say "this is an unverified link."
We can certainly give it a try and see if we get flooded with spam. :)
Oh sweetness and perfect timing! I have a payday loan article that I think will greatly benefit the SEOmoz community. What was that thing you said, if I buy you some drinkbait it gets auto-approved? ;)
When I saw the posts Mystery Guest put up were nofollowed I thought "Wow. This is getting out of hand". I know it's all automated but still... And then the post was promotaed to the main blog and the nofollows stuck. Maybe just the stories promoted or something.
My point is to give something tangible away but still make sure people are working for it to retain the exclusivity of posting at moz.
PS. Not that I'm tryting to talk you out of letting the nofollows go. I had another idea on that recently too.
I get the feeling it will be fine to remove the nofollows. I'm sure there will be a few here and there who try to sneak in some link spam, but most of the YOUmoz articles have been very respectful of spam abuse.
That's a really good point. Why is the PR for YOUmoz higher than the blog? I know PR isn't everything but still...
I think it is a vanity thing. Kind of like how people link to interviews about themselves, the same thing applies to YOUmoz posts. So not only do you get the people that find the post interesting enough to link to you also get each poster as a vested, interested party promoting it!
(Another brilliant lesson from the fine folks at SEOmoz!)
Rand, great to read your thoughts on YOUmoz. I've got one YOUmoz post under my belt - Guide to traffic from Digg comments. I'm not in the SEO or marketing industry but I spend plenty of time reading and thinking about it. I enjoy it. My YOUmoz post was promoted to the main blog and I received lots of positive feedback.
I decided at the time though that it probably was not worth my time to write another YOUmoz post if my goal was to drive traffic or visibility to another website. The clickthrough rate was very low for the links that I could measure - maybe a dozen clicks even though it was on the main page. I also noticed that the nofollow was not removed even though it was on the main blog - I'm glad to see you are going to change that. It's only fair. If you give it the editorial go ahead for YOUmoz and then to get promoted to the main page it doesn't seem right to keep nofollows on. I'd go further to say that you should remove nofollows from YOUmoz as well. If there is a site you really don't want to link to then remove the link or don't publish the post.
I think YOUmoz is a great idea. It was great to get feedback on my article - 46 comments. The readers here (and SEOmoz staff) are very smart and have tons of great ideas. Thanks for all you are doing.
So I just checked to confirm my "dozen clicks" statement above. It was actually 67. Of the four links on my YOUmoz post to the site I was using as an example, 67 people visited. To be fair, the links were not highlighted and I did not give the reader a compelling reason to click. Does anyone have better examples of how a YOUmoz post has been able to drive visitors to your blog to support Rand's first point?
Thanks for the reminder Rand. I know I've been meaning to write something for YOUmoz for awhile now and never seem to find the time to get the post written. I know I need to make the time and not find it, but you know...
Maybe this will be the kick in the you know what that I need.
Cheers to that! I always enjoy your comments, and I'd guess your posts would be equally valuable.
You forgot one thing ...
Writing posts for YOUmoz also helps towards getting enough thumbs for a premium membership. The 6-30 thumbs really add up per post and you might just find yourself taking home a free premium membership.
I think the other benefits are right on Rand, thanks for sharing those.
One thing I really like about YOUmoz is that it is a place where anyone can get the kind of page views and exposure SEOmoz gets for their own posts (not too many places to do that and it's awefully nice of you guys to do). Sounds like it's working for the better, hope it continues.
I think that's what makes this blog so much better than the rest. You interact with peer-to-peer respect, and reward quality participation.
A great article or blog does deserve some link love when effort has been put forth with thought and clarity.
The other thing is the love people have on here for the 'art' of being an 'seo engineer'. We do engineer don't we?
Cheers to bretheren!
thanks for sharing.....as it goes "educated customer is your best customer" or for better fit "educated blogger is your best blogger"
Now my brain is buzzing with possible articles to write. This is a great alternative to get some exposures if you are like me and can't come up with enough articles to justify your own SEO blog, but come up with the occassional good idea or five.
PS: The Add Comment button is broken in Safari when you aren't logged in, and the error message to tell you turn turn off the JavaScript wysiwyg editor in your account settings comes up only if it works.
This is just me, but when coming up with a YOUmoz topic I like to think, "What is something I can share that's unique to my own SEO experience?" That way, it's very specific and personal, and hopefully more meaningful than if I wrote about a generic topic that anyone could research and write about.
Rand - get some sleep!
;)
Why? I do my best work at this hour :) Coming up this week... a post where Optimus Prime and Megatron explain black hat & white hat SEO!
Oh please do. Possibly even use Optimash Prime, rather than Optimus Prime...
That's a pretty awesome toy right there. I may have to pick that up...
It truly is.
And you can get Spider Spud, Darth Tater, Spud Trooper and R2 Potatoo as well.
My name's Ciaran, I'm 31 & I like toys...
HA HA - that's brilliant! Especially if you do it as a comic.
"By the end of this day one will rise and one shall fall..."
-Optimus Prime, Transformers: The Movie (the good one, not the new Michael Bay crapfest)
Guys - you need to get your comic skills on....
I've managed to post once on YOUmoz myself. At the time I was an unregular blogger on a no traffic site. So it was an interesting experience to get my article read by actual people ;)
A note on leveraging our profiles... umm... I still can't update mine. No matter what I do every time I press update it doesnt save the new data so I haven't been able to update it for months now
Nice insight - and I think I'll probably use this to try and prize the credit card out the Big Boss's hands... catch you on the flipside...
Good advice for general article writing also. I ghost write articles for my clients every week, but have yet to write anything for YOUMoz.
I guess I should take the time.
I got tired of being around of different tools and different sites looking for consolidated information about what the status of my site. So I decided to make a report that looks like this. This is a basic report not an automatic generated work. This is done manually with specialized tools.
Mario Ruiz
https://www.oursheet.com
This is a great post! I've been meaning to write a YOUmoz article for a while now, since I think it's such a valuble resource and it involves the community a lot more the fourms. (I can't stand forums) I've just been struggling to find a good topic to share about. This is a really engaging article that gives me some more motivation to write one!
Is there anything that SEOmoz CAN'T do?
I do not know.
Yep - juggling. None of us can juggle. Also, our ability to operate hot air balloons and hanggliders has been called into question several times. :)
how is so Randy?