Look forward to any & all questions you've got :-)

what does "crunch breadth" mean? Does something like this exist in SEO? I'm not very sure about the term... :)

Does do-follow links in the Global Header Section of a Website will harm and can a webpage have same anchor text links i.e one in header section and another one with same anchor text link in webpage content of that page?

What was your first job? And when was it that you realized you wanted to be in marketing?

I worked for the Wizards of the Coast game center on University Way in Seattle, WA in college. Mostly so I could buy Pokemon cards at the employee discount and resell them on eBay and Craigslist for 3-5X markup :-)

I never really planned on being in marketing. I'd spent a lot of time at my Mom's office growing up (Gillian had a print marketing business - biz cards, yellow pages ads, brochures for small businesses), so it might have been through osmosis. I really wanted to be a web designer/developer, because I love creating and I loved the web. Unfortunately, I sucked at it :-) But, I was good at driving traffic (or rather, I eventually got good at it), which led me here.

Wizard of Games... From there the Wizard of Moz in your Seomoz bio? #trivia

"Mostly so I could buy Pokemon cards at the employee discount and resell them on eBay and Craigslist for 3-5X markup" ---> An entrepreneur in the truest sense

That's awesome. My first website I made was one where I sold Pokemon cards at a mark-up. I also sold them at car boot sales and still remember a kid's parents spending £25 for a holographic card and then him FOLDING IT IN HALF and putting it in his pocket. Crazyness. 

I have a hard time believing you sucked at web design/development.  You're a natural!  

Hi Rand,

I’ll jump right to it – three friends and I are beginning a blog (theyrun.org – still in staging) about our journey of training for a marathon and raising money for prostate cancer. I’ve read most, if not all, of your posts about Geraldine’s blogging experience which was both inspirational and insightful for the team here and we would love to hear your opinion on our blog –

What would be some great places to inspire creative content ideas? Do you have any off the top of your head?

We are not tech-oriented, but are they any drastic layout issues you would suggest to the website?

Two of us come from a content marketing background, and we wonder – should we bother with high quality and even relevant directories?

Between YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest, which social media do you believe we should invest in most? (Of course, we will test all).

Do you have any charity blogs you read that we should take a look at?

Is there anything you think we should stay far away from with this blog?

Will you donate when the marathon comes around? I’ll currently accept Inbound.org karma as payment.

Any other broad tips are really appreciated – thanks for your time! *sorry was having format issues.

Creative content ideas, see http://moz.com/rand/where-does-creativity-come-from/. Great artists steal :-) Sadly, I've never been a runner, so my idea tank here is empty.

Layout - read Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think." Still the best thing out there on the usability topic.

I probably wouldn't bother with most directories that are "generic." However, if you find great sites about marathons or prostate cancer and they have listings of friends/other sites/etc, those might be good options.

Don't trust me - trust your audience. If you can, survey a few dozen to few hundred marathoners or folks in your circle and find out where they participate. Then go to all those sites and verify. Tools like FollowerWonk, FindPeopleonPlus, etc. might be helpful.

Charity blogs... Vittana's done fairly well. CharityWater, too. But I don't know the field well enough, so you should probably investigate further.

Stay away from posting just to post. Don't be boring!

Donation - sure! Email me - rand@seomoz.org - and Geraldine and I will evaluate to see if it's something we'd support :-)

You get one SEO tool (none SEOMoz) for a month, you can only use that one.  What is it?

If Google Analytics counts, it would be that one. If not, then probably Raven - they've got a broad suite of stuff (even without rank tracking) and are really good folks.

Thanks for your answer!

Nice to see someone promoting a product with no aff link ;-)

Hi Rand. It's Anonymous again.

We'd like to get tips on how better to reach out to news paper reporters via our Twitter accounts and the website : http://anonrelation.net

What kind of writing, tone or approach you think we should use?
What SEO tactics would you suggest us?

We'll post on @YourAnonNews to validate this question.

Hi Anonymous! It's very awesome (and a little scary) to have you guys in my world these days. If I ever do something that pisses you off, please LMK, OK? :-)

I did a recent WB Friday on outreach: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-separates-a-good-outreach-email-from-a-great-one-whiteboard-friday and Tom Critchlow has one a couple years back that's also solid: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/outreach-for-linkbuilding-whiteboard-friday

In terms of writing tone and style, I think it's all about what fits with you. Authenticity seems to be big with press, and particularly when it comes to cold emails, they're quite picky. We have actually started using an agency recently - Barokas PR here in Seattle. They're not perfect (I don't totally love them for coming up with the press ideas or executing the written stuff), but they're terrific at outreach, possibly because they have so many contacts in the field and know what reporters do and don't like. That might be a path to consider - a PR firm that really likes/supports what you're doing could be willing to do some pro bono work perhaps (or maybe your collective already includes some PR folks).

In terms of other SEO tactics - it's hard to say unless I know your goals, what you want to accomplish in search results, who you're trying to reach - all that. But given your fame and reach, I'd think that content + messages to your collective and followers could result in a lot of activity (links, shares, contributions of content, whatever you need).

Thanks for the reply Rand. We really appreciate it. We have a SEO guy (that's gotta be me) now working for the Collective so that's why we're hanging around. Some guys hang with @SuicideGirls or @DeadMau5 instead but hey :p

We didn't think about a PR firm and that is indeed a very very very useful tip. We could learn a lot from those guys. Our team is a PR team for Anonymous so we'd have lots of fun together!

Already watched the Outreach WBFriday which is awesome. Twitter via @YourAnonNews https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/290668832983486464

We'll def check out the other WBFriday. Thanks!

As for content + message we get about 50k visits on AnonRelations.net a month from twitter it works great. We're improving our content by the day, adding vids, links and related articles in most of our posts.

Also about Authenticity we're working on it. It can seam obvious that Anonymous can say what they think out loud which is true, but we have other challenges. The hardest one is educating other anons to be authentic but respectful and meaningful. Also speaking for everyone in Anonymous is challenging because you never know what can happen if you said something someone else don't like.

And by the way if you want to speak with us anytime about any topic, even for you own personal curiosity, pro question, whatever, please come and chat with us. We'd be more than happy to chat.

To continue this conversation, I've created an Anonymous-specific SEO discussion: http://www.inbound.org/discussion/view/how-would-you-do-seo-for-anonymous

I'm sure you have more than enough fans on Inbound (myself included) that are willing to answer any questions you have about SEO or anything else Inbound-related :-)

What's been the biggest challenge for you since you took funding back in April? Money brings a whole new set of problems and no one talks about the "after funding" challenges. What have been yours?

Speed and slowness: http://moz.com/rand/its-not-just-technical-debt-everything-gets-painful-slow-as-you-scale/

I had this expectation that we'd launch the "big thing we wanted to launch with funding" last fall. It slipped to January, then to March, and now April. It's been hard to work around the fact that growing an engineering team from ~18 to ~60 actually makes you slower for a good while before it makes you faster (engineers are interviewing, and recruiting, and documenting their code so others can work on it, and training new people up, which all means they're not producing as fast as they were).

Communication becomes harder - I fell lucky I still get to do 1:1s with anyone who wants to or has time, but it's meant saying no to a lot of other things.

That all said, Moz+funding is WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY better and easier and more fun and exciting than before funding. It's going to take time, but I know we'll get to do some remarkable things that we never could have without that injection of capital.

Thanks Rand!

What tips would you give to first time public speakers?

Did a WB Friday on that here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/8-rules-for-exceptional-slide-presentations-whiteboard-friday

My big ones:

- Watch lots of other speakers. Make notes about the things that make you (and the audience) cringe and walk out. Make other notes about what kept people in their seats, wanting more.
- Tell a story! Don't just give tips (though actionable tips are beloved by professional audiences), but explain why this stuff matters.
- Bullet points KILL kittens. Seriously, every presentation is so much better without a list of bullet points or text that the speaker reads off. And yet, that's how almost every first-time speaker does it.
- Read "Resonate" from Nancy Duarte

I...I had no idea I've been killing kittens. I feel terrible.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early days of SEOmoz?

What do you feel are main factors that led to SEOmoz's success?

Thanks from London :)

Biggest challenges:

- Making enough money to pay the bills. We had to flee an office space we were renting at one point, because we couldn't afford to pay the next month's rent. Matt (Inman, who was the first real programmer we hired) and I traded off who was taking paychecks home a few times (that sucked). Gillian didn't take a paycheck from ~2001 to ~2006.
- Learning to be a leader. I should write a blog post about this, but there's emotional and psychological and organizational challenges aplenty.
- Raising our B round of investment. We failed and failed and failed from 2008-2012 until Brad & Foundry came along.

Led to Success:

- Surrounded by amazing people. In particular, Sarah Bird, but there have been so many - Ben Hendrickson, who built the originally Linkscape. Phil Smith, who has helped to improve that product. Adam Feldstein, who's become an amazing product leader. Now folks like David Mihm (Getlisted) and Peter Bray (Followerwonk). And this applies outside the company, too - the SEO/marketing is filled with some of the most generous, wonderful, empathetic, intelligent people I've ever met. I feel constantly lucky to be in this field.
- Chose a business model with low cost of customer acquisition and low people-intensity to onboard/sell. Having no sales team and rejecting the classic SaaS model meant we could grow without major injections of capital every year or two (think Salesforce, Marketo or Hubspot).
- Probably many more, but I feel like I should get to some other questions :-)

"- Raising our B round of investment. We failed and failed and failed from 2008-2012 until Brad & Foundry came along."

That wasn't failure .... that was searching for synchronicity :-)

What new insights will Universal Analytics offer marketers? Where do you see tracking technology going in the next 5 years or so?

Multi-touch attribution is big. Better funnel analytics, too. And probably, eventually, some tools that make tracking sources for CLTV (customer lifetime value, aka the holy grail), possible inside software. Imagine seeing that people who were first touched by advertising on Facebook vs. an organic follow/click on Twitter had 10% less CLTV. Might make you re-think how you're spending those early efforts!

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck? Just kidding ;)

What advice would you give smaller companies (on a tight budget) to invest their money in? One giant piece of linkbait or invest it into a company blog (design, content, etc)?

Horse sized duck. 100 is too many. Ducks are slow on land, so I could run from the big one, distract it with a bakery, get a tactical advantage, then wham! The old fork-in-the-eye. :-) #simpsons

For smaller companies, it totally depends. Local-focused businesses often just need a great site, great product, and to nudge their evangelists to help (being on Twitter/FB/Pinterest/Yelp/etc). If you're web focused, having a fantastic "something" (a blog everyone loves, a piece of content that is constantly referenced, etc) can be a game changer.

Ducks can fly so good luck running.

Fork-in-the-eye! Classic :)

Here's the @YourAnonNews tweet : https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/291582021627686914

Very cool! Thank you again :-)

Hi Rand,

A few questions:

What ever happened to those yellow shoes? I miss those yellow shoes! They should be in a clear case, proudly displayed in your office!

Does SEOmoz have any plans to rebrand as simply: Moz ? to get rid of the SEO component at some point?

Great question. Looks like you're building the DA groundwork for something.

I wear the yellow shoes all the time! Just wore them to the NMX conference in Vegas. Will have them on again tonight when I speak at the Codefellows event. I think Geraldine showed some photos in her post about Green Bay (which should be going on Everywhereist soon).

Rebrand? I should check with someone about that....

Back when you still did SEO consulting, what was your proudest SEO moment? What client did you absolutely knock out of the park and took their business to the next level?

Yelp.

Although, to be fair, it was really Yelp themselves (the product and Jeremy's relentless focus on SEO). Literally the week they IPO'd I was still getting emails from Jeremy (their CEO) about SEO questions. We'd stopped formally consulting, but I offered to help out anytime and he still occassionally takes me up on it. There's no substitute for having the CEO/executive team buy into and really belive in search (or marketing in general).

Do you find better use out of an all-around tool (i.e. Hubspot) or specific tools working together (i.e. Unbounce + MyEmma + Hootsuite)?

At Moz, we've built a lot of stuff on our own, and then added in pieces (Cotweet, GA, etc). But, I think if you have a smaller tech team or a marketing team that's being overwhelmed with engineering requests, something like Hubspot would be ideal.

Imagine you are given $200 bucks for your SEO campaign (too less I know). Where/ how would you use it? The reason for asking such question is to know the startegy for samll-sized company or firm.

I probably wouldn't use it at all. For the first 5 years of SEOmoz's marketing efforts, I doubt I spent that much on anything - just blogged, participated in communities, produced some interesting one-off content (like the beginner's guide, the ranking factors, etc). Maybe I'd buy a decent camera to do some video :-)

Rand, what are your thoughts about the Facebook social graph announcement yesterday?

Until I've seen the whole thing and gotten to play with the edges, it's hard to make any comments. The only big one is that it's clearly not going to compete with Google in many meaningful ways (at least, to serve the function that Google serves for us).

Exactly!

Which one book changed your life the most?

This one: http://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Who-Wasnt-Fortune-Without/dp/B001E95J70

Given to me by Will Critchlow :-)

Excellent, thanks Rand. I'll check it out. 

Given to *me* by Dan Barker.

Keep passing it on :)

What are the biggest personal sacrifices you have made to progress your business; and did they play out as you anticipated when you made the decisions to make them?

Many years ago, I used to do a lot of things other than work. Now I just work and spend time with Geraldine. That simplicity works for me, but I think it would frustrate a lot of people, including my younger self. I liked to hike, to go drinking with friends, to do more vacation travel, and I LOVED video games.

But yes, giving up that time and putting it into the company has paid dividends. I don't think I could have gotten it to here without that.

I appreciate the thoughtful reply, thanks.

Pokémon lover, video game lover.

If you ask me, Geraldine is one lucky gal.

Rand - what's your opinion on the future of e-commerce? 

Personally, I love the e-commerce space in terms of inbound and marketing in general. I think this space has insane potential to grow and evolve. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas as to the direction of the e-commerce industry over the next 10 years.  

We'll keep buying more and more online. As younger consumers get older, they'll do more of their buying online. That said, there will always be room for retail, but it will have to get better, and I think e-commerce + the shift in populations moving away from suburbs and back to cities will mean carnage in the strip mall and suburban mall/retail worlds.

What are the biggest opportunities SEOmoz has been able to seize post-VC-round that wouldn't have been possible without the funding?

Acquisitions has been a big one (with Wonk & Getlisted), but growing the team is huge, too. We've also been able to build some things we never could have otherwise, but these won't be released for a little while yet to come.

Thanks for the response... and thanks for taking the time to do this AMA :-)

Rand, what do you think we all (as SEO industry) can do to protect our "name" and get respect for SEO industry. I'm talking about on a big scale, not individual. Would love to possibly have a discussion with you on this topic on one of #maximpact hangouts.

I've been working hard on precisely this problem for a decade. And while I hate to admit it, in many ways, I've come to recognize that the acronym will always carry a rough reputation, much like "used car salesman" or "wrongful injury attorney" or "member of congress."

The right move may be to simply make SEO part of the broader terms (it fits into web marketing, inbound marketing, and maybe just "marketing" overall). I've seen a lot of shift in this direciton and I used to fight against it, but have come around to more acceptance the last few years.

LOL at "member of Congress". Nice one. :)

I'd only add that I think personal accountability plays a big part in this discussion. Everyone taking the time to educate clients, do outreach and advocacy for responsible/sustainable SEO, and to not cut corners in any aspect of their work.

Jon, I certainly believe that individual responsibility plays a HUGE role. Individuals educating their areas of influence is the key. But being online for 2 years, I can't see SEO experts (and industry in general) to agree with one another, make small compromises, have a great education program/plan and stand strong against unethical & unprofessional SEO. I believe we can (together only, not with separate efforts) get this industry to the point where we can proudly say "SEO professional."

It's just like playing Ingress ;) Team that works together wins ;)

Thanks Rand! 

I personally refuse to give up and think the "battle" is not over if top minds and most influential SEOs would be brought together to take a strong stand (instead of avoiding the term & trying to rebrand), define major points and educate public & their areas of influence, use press/news, protect true SEO professionals and expose unethical tactics & individuals/companies without hesitation.

What's even worse? Guys like me that have to do SEO *for* used car dealers...

Rand, I'm from Brazil and a huge fan. If you could change anything on Google (the way it works indexing/crawling), what would you do? In other words: are you happy with the way things are in SEO market or SEO World? 

More transparency. Google says transparency is a core value internally, yet they don't practice what they preach. I think it would make everything about SEO better if Google opened up much more of how their search engine works, and was public about changes they're trying/considering. The world of fighting black hats by keeping it secret is ridiculous. Security through obscurity is a terrible policy everywhere (as Bruce Schneier often notes http://www.schneier.com/)

Thanks Rand.

Ciao Rand. Talking about mentors is quite common thanks to a great posts series right now? What were the women you consider your mentors, and what a mentor should not ever do in your opinion? And of who you are especially proud as mentor and why?

Gillian, my Mom, was obviously a mentor to me for a long time (both personally and professionally). Michelle Goldberg (our first investor from Ignition in Nov. 2007) has been another big one. And Sarah Bird, our COO.

Things mentors shouldn't do? I don't really know. I don't think I've heard or seen many examples of mentors acting irresponsibly, so it's hard to give guidance there.

Re: "And of who you are especially proud as mentor and why?" I'm not sure what you mean there... Can you clarify?

Let me rephrase it:

SEOmoz has been the virtual  "school" for many SEOs during the years. Do you have some special affection and admiration for someone you have seen growing "with Seomoz"?

You mean an employee at SEOmoz who's grown a lot? Or someone in the SEOmoz community who has grown as an SEO?

If it's the first one, there's a ton of people to choose from, but I might have to pick Aaron Wheeler. He impresses me every single time I interact with him, and now he's built a great team and is trying to make customer service in the software industry as a whole better. Absolutely amazing guy.

Yup, that was the question :)... sorry I was so not understandable (tired and in a train back home.

Do you have any advice for optimizing a site that in a sub-directory of a nation site? Would there be any difference if it was configured as a sub-domain?

I'd stick with the subdirectory, not a subdomain. Then it's just classic marketing/SEO - make things people passionately want and would want to share, make connections, be sure to optimize the technical aspects (keywords, URLs, mobile-friendly, etc).

Thanks Rand, I think we worry a little about what SEO efforts are going on amongst the rest of the main domain since we only have control over the sub folder. We don't have access to the .htaccess file or the robots.txt file either.  :(  Sounds like we should keep on trucking with our quality on page content/tech optimization (that we have control of) and build awesome links.

What is your favorite kind of music to listen to while your hard at work? Different selection from when you have some down time?

I like folk/indie stuff, but I find it hard to work with music, actually. I love it for long car trips, though :-)

Thanks for doing this Rand, so many GREAT questions and some awesome answers.

Hi Rand, thanks for doing this AMA. Why do you think the phrase "inbound marketing" is so polarizing?

Hubspot and SEOmoz seem to be the heavy proponents of moving the conversation and the vocabulary away from SEO. This year, you changed your traditional post of SEO Predictions to "Inbound Marketing" Predictions. I think some of us, myself included, feel like this semantic push is really just driven by business motives and by your investors ("SEO" reputation among investors is mixed, your ability to grow revenue streams and deliver a return is constrained by the word "SEO," etc.)

SEO was INCREDIBLY polarizing way back in the day, too. From 1998 to 2004, people hated on each other for using the term, and I remember arguments at conferences on stage about "SEM" vs. "it's just Search Marketing dammit!"

I think it will all pass.

I just really like inbound marketing because I get really tired of saying "SEO and social media and content marketing and email and CRO and branding and PR and all the other things you can do on the web to earn traffic and attention that don't directly cost money." If there's a better term that means what inbound does (and doesn't also include paid, like "web marketing" or "Internet marketing") that earns popularity, I'd probably switch to that. I considered "earned media" and "organic marketing" but neither are as popular or well received, particularly outside the hardcore SEO industry, as "inbound marketing."

I can't help feeling liked you dodged the question.

Not really. It's changing times. SEO can be too microscopic to describe everything we have to do now. For example, you simply can't be a good SEO without some components of social media, since they are increasingly intertwined. Like Rand said, what to call what we do has been a debate for years. 

The idea that the "shift" (which is by no means, a replacement yet) has anything to do with Hubspot/SEOmoz investors sounds a little tin foil hat-like to me.

Agreed. I'd also wonder, what do the conspiracy theorists think is the value that these companies derive from having adoption of a broader, unbranded name? If it was called "Mozketing" or "Hubspotketing" I'd understand, but Inbound Marketing was coined by Seth Godin, then adopted by Brian & Dharmesh, and now used by literally tens of thousands of companies in job titles, roles, descriptions, etc.

I actually had no idea it was coined by Seth Godin. Although Mozketing certainly had a ring to it :)

Can you be more explicit about what you were seeking? You want to know why it's polarizing - probably because it's new and it challenges convention. New things that challenge convention are usually polarizing for a while, then get accepted. SEO was the same way.

Do you feel that the success of SEOMoz and the worldwide recognition you have gained has had any impact on the person you were at the beginning to the person you feel you are now?

Huh... Yeah, probably. I think I'm more confident than I used to be. And, honestly, I worry all the time about becoming a tyrant or a douchebag, or even just losing my humility. I hope I can maintain that balance. Thankfully "worldwide recognition" in the marketing field doesn't translate anywhere else, so I've never had to deal with any of that "celebrity" stuff, which I think would suck royally.

Thanks Rand - Sorry about the poor choice of words in my question. 

Hi Rand how you think future Facebook search will influence social & inbound? U r the best!! Always follow u from Italy 

Hard to say. See above - I'm gonna wait until they release more and I can play with it before making any guesses.

Does Moz plan on integrating an "all-inclusive" internet marketing suite, with tools for email marketing, A/B testing, etc.?

Maybe someday. Not right now though - we're really focused on wanting to help with the inbound channels and ongoing analytics/reporting for folks who earn traffic from search/social/content/etc.

Hi Rand, What advice would you give to an inbound marketing intern? What would be the most important lessons to take away before starting out full time?

Hey Rand,

How long will it be before we start to see emails arriving in our in boxes promising to get our website to No 1 on Facebook's new Graph Search?

:) 

Do you miss the consulting business? What's the best part of a software business?

What's on your playlist when you need to get stuff done?

Quiet :-)

As of present, what would you say is the "Holy Grail" of SEO and SMO?

Being wholly remarkable, and having a great brand.

How would you suggest that SEOs go about forecasting the results of their work with any semblance of accountability? This was one of the hardest parts of my job as an SEO (where I had to forecast weekly results a year in advance) and I'd love your thoughts.

This. You used to be able to make some predictions based on keyword traffic + rank you think you can achieve + expected increase in traffic as a result of improved clickthrough rate, then use conversion rates to hopefully take a shot at ROI, but clickthrough rates for top 10 results and rankings in themselves are almost impossible to predict now.

I can't imagine trying to forecast a year in advance...

I think we can still make suggestions based on keyword traffic and current SERPS position. I've always gone month on month and if you can show visual improvement, the client (in my experience at least) will always be happy with that.

There are no guarantees in SEO, predicting a year in advance is crazy, Jonathon if your clients are asking for this i'd give them a nice hard reality slap to the face.

It's eminently doable and the mechanics in Excel are not incredibly difficult. But the challenge is accountability. Not sure that there's really an answer to this - it's probably more of a rhetorical question.

Nah, it's a practical and necessary question for in-house SEO's in a multichannel environment, most other direct marketing channels are much more forecastable.

Honestly, I don't know that there's any single tactic or even a list that could provide a great answer. SEO is powerful precisely because it's hard to predict and hard to measure. If it wasn't, lots of people would invest a lot more, and the field would be far more competitive than it is. That "hard to predict/track" quality is an advantage in many ways.

The problem is when Google throws a major update at you at the beginning of your fiscal year. :) I find it helpful to break down and understand what drove success in the previous year. A big boon to forecasting is if something you think is helpful starts in the middle of the year, then forecasting those incremental improvements forward on to the next year (and not forecasting them for the months on the calendar where it was already running). I try to think about the site in terms of pagesets (on a blog: individual post pages, "category" pages, homepage, landing page.

For most sites I've worked with, the keyword space is really made up of several discrete subsets. Some of those subsets have inelastic growth but high payoff, some have dramatic percentage growth but low conversion rate, some should not be optimized because they suck. Custom segments in Google Analytics, with independent estimates for the YOY growth of each subset reduce the margin of error.

Without sufficient analytical history, none of this can happen. You should celebrate valid YOY analytics,  fight like hell for that continuity of metrics, and be grateful when given the opportunity to own or maintain custody of the analytics - like when moving marketing programs to and from agencies, for example.

Hi Rand, how did you overcome the fear of failure early on in the life of SEOmoz?

I feared it so much, I did nothing else but try to make ends meet. I'm not sure I ever "overcame" that fear - it still drives me today. My Dad always used to say to me and to my teachers, and to people around us that I was a "high potential, low achiever" kid. I've internalized that so much that even though I know it drives me, I've almost become comfortable that it's part of who I am.

Thanks, Rand!

I think this is on the mind of just about anyone that starts a company or has a business.  It's nice to read Rands thoughts on this.

Hey Rand,

The AMA's are an awesome idea! Thanks so much for giving up a chunk of your day for us :)

We are having an internal debate on the need for us to find efficiencies in order to cope with support requests from our growing client base at rmoov. The two schools of thought are "get anyone to answer questions from prepared answers" and "Customer service and knowledge sharing is a big chunk of our marketing power - we must not lose that".

Where did you/ should we draw the line between these two viewpoints so that our rapidly growing customer base does not become a problem we cannot manage?

Sha

Do everything you can to build up scalable online resources to answer questions. It will make your margins and you ability to handle higher levels of customers much, much better (and often, those resources become great content). The other option is to form a community that helps each other - more challenging, but can be very worthwhile, too.

Hi Rand. People say SEO is dead/dying - what do you make of such saying?

If they mean "no one is searching anymore and it's no longer valuable to get traffic from search engines," then it's just complete bunk.

However, if they mean "SEO as a singular practice that includes only the classic elements of SEO is giving way to a broader kind of marketing practice that includes technical SEO, content, creativity, social media, email, branding, PR, etc" then I fully agree.

The SEO I knew and loved 8 years ago still works sometimes, but increasingly, you'll get beat by those who may do less hardcore SEO and more on the content/branding/social elements.

Back when SEOmoz did SEO consulting for clients, what was one of the companies biggest challenges? This can be anything, doesn't have to be specific to actually "doing" SEO, it could be another factor such as managing client expectations for example.

Building trust. Client expectations may range, and results may vary, but trust in the relationship is what kept clients with us when the metrics underperformed and the lack of it killed relationships even when the numbers were great.

Can we see your web search for one day? If yes, here's your Google link for a screen shot.

If no, what are the limits of TAGFEE ?

Bonus Question: Would you opt out/in of Graph Search?

I totally would post it! Except here's what it says:
"

Web History has not been enabled by the administrator of the domain @seomoz.org."

How did you develop the TAGFEE framework?

We started with Jim Collins' framework from http://www.jimcollins.com/tools/vision-framework.pdf and then refined. Geraldine actually wrote TAGFEE - she translated the work we'd done into the six core elements and the acronym itself, then created the written document that we still use today.

How much will it cost if someone invites you to speak on a conference in Southeast Asia? (not sure if you've been into the southeast part of the continent, but I'm pretty sure that you're going to like it here). 

I don't charge for speaking events, but I am trying to limit travel and only go places where there's a big audience of marketers, and I can have a meaningful impact (and it has to fit into a very tough schedule, which is why overseas is so hard for me).

Do you think Google Author Rank is going to cause as big of waves in SEO as (almost) everyone is claiming it will? If so, what are the biggest changes do you think we'll see once it goes live. If not, why don't you think it will be a big deal to the way SEO's address content?

Probably not as big as some are proclaiming, but I do believe the influence won't be nearly as subtle as rel=author it is today. Beyond that, I'd say I don't know enough to speculate.

Rand, I saw your semi-recent article about saving time in a variety of ways so you can get more done.  In it, you mentioned having a date night with your wife.  My question is, do you have kids?  If not, do you plan to have kids and if so, how will that change the way you handle your schedule?

No kids and no plans to have kids.

Hi Rand, thank you for the AMA! This is an awesome idea!! Okay, here is my question:

What would you consider your strangest SEO experience (both client side and dealing with the industry side - without naming names)?

Brian

Ha! Let's just say Google is far more... manual... or at least they used to be (probably still are) than they admit/talk about.

Arrrrr....'tis true, and when you confront it as a business obstacle it will drive you mad. I think it would be fair to conclude that they are even more manual then they used to be, due to the massive amount of Web Search Evaluators employed worldwide.

Hi Rand I have two questions:

The first, Facebook graph search, something we should be concerned about?

The second, As a fellow beard enthusiast, i want to know...how do you get the chin fluff looking so god damn good? 

Thanks 

Martin

Don't be concerned, especially until they open it up and we see whether lots of people actually use it and what for.

Beard - really? I think it looks ridiculous. It's white/gray on one side and the white/gray hairs grow faster than the dark hairs which can look seriously strange if I don't trim it.

Are there any advantages to hosting web images on Google's Picasa or an online web service where you can geo-tag images?

Other than the geo-tag info itself? No, probably not.

If Matt Cutts took Truth Serum.....

and you could only ask him 3 questions, 

what would they be?

#1) Please list all the motivations that make you stay at Google despite the hundreds of millions of dollars you have and the other amazing things you could surely do in your life.

#2) Here is a list of all the named algorithmic updates since 2004. Please write down the changes that were made, the reasons why, and any odd effects you saw.

#3) What topic modeling and content analysis features is Google currently using in their relevancy/ranking algorithm?

What is your guess on topic modeling and content analysis features Google is using in their relevancy/ranking algorithm?

I think they're using something similar to LDA, but probably more updated and feature-rich. I know our data science team is going to be working to figure that out in the months ahead.

Thanks Rand!

At any point along the journey have you stopped seeing SEO/Inbound Marketing as fun and instead it has become more of a job? 

Huh... Nope. Not yet! Still love it. Still love seeing great examples of it. Still love doing it :-)

How do you think Graph Search will play into SEO strategy moving forward?

Might be an interesting research tool, but beyond that, probably limited (though hard to know how they'll evolve it).

Bing is complementing Graph Search, does it makes any difference?

Hi Rand, What exactly is EMD (Exact Match Domain) according to you. How do we know whether a domain is EMD??

EMD is pretty simple actually. If you have a search query like "blue rabbits" then the domain name bluerabbits.com (or bluerabbits.net or any bluerabbits.TLD) is considered an EMD.

Thanks a lot Rand

Hey, what's happened to your advanced search operators guide?

Looks like it still exists here: http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professionals-guide-to-advanced-search-operators#google

Though it's a bit out of date.

Here's a copy at archive.org. http://web.archive.org/web/20120404210814/http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professionals-guide-to-advanced-search-operators

We took it down because it was starting to get outdated. We'll be releasing a lot more updated guides and information in 2013!

Thanks guys :)

If you had to leave marketing and do something else, what industry would you get into? 

Maybe writing/publishing. I'd love to write a fiction book someday :-)

As a new business on a budget, and with SEO in mind, does it make sense to consider having my website done with one of the companies providing off-the shelf hosted wordpress solutions or should I really consider having it developed from scratch? What questions should I ask these companies in respect to SEO to separate the good from the bad ones? Thanks Rand!

Depends on your size, budget, and goals. Wordpress is pretty darn good for a lot of things, though, and can be very customized.

Questions to ask SEOs: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ten-question-litmus-test-for-professional-seos

Thank you :-)

If I wanted to be an Inbound Marketing Consultant, which types of business would be most interested in my services? Software companies? Lawyers? Who?

Totally depends on where and how you build your brand and expertise. Could be any of those!

I live in Virginia Beach, VA and travel all over the United States, for the company I work for, to speak to our employees and partners about how to efficiently and effectively implement online marketing. I've never been to Seattle, WA before, but they'll be sending me there within the next few months. Can I get a tour of SEOmoz?! :-)

Yes! Just email me and I'll set you up :-) rand@seomoz.org

What's the plan post Moz? It would be interesting to know your goals / ambitions once you decide to get out of running a SAAS company & what personal (non-business) goals you have?

I'd probably point to: http://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Who-Wasnt-Fortune-Without/dp/B001E95J70

But it depends on how far Moz goes :-)

When you compare yourself to other software companies of similar sizes in any industry what is the most common challenge that you see in running your business?

Company culture seems to be a big one. Internal communication is another. In software, burnout is a huge problem (and we do a lot to try to mitigate that). Recruiting is also incredibly hard - we compete against Google, Facebook, Amazon for nearly every engineering hire.

Hey folks, just a thought for everyone. If you see a non-personalized question that hasn't been addressed yet, jump in! Let's get some convos started :)

YES! Please, please THIS :-)

Consulting vs Product Creation

I'm stuck between the choice of pursuing consulting clients which brings in guaranteed money and I already have the skillset for, but which causes more stress and is not as enjoyable VS creating my own software or ecommerce site that may or may not work but will pay off in the end. How would you choose? Is there an elegant way to work both into the mix so I get paid faster up front and have an investment in my proprietary website down the line?

Many thanks!

Personally, I struggled with consulting. Product has been far more rewarding, scalable, and fun for me.

I'm sure there are some elegant ways to do both, but I never really discovered them. It was just a hard, messy slog, and a transition as soon as it could work.

It's interesting looking at many consulting companies as they grow moving into product. Consulting is cashflow-positive from day one, keeps you sharp and close to the customer. You've got to know what you're talking about. And arguably, if you can't sell consulting in the space your product functions in, something's missing.

A small number of high-value consulting customers could work well for you? Take a look at this article: ??https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1????

Rand,

What do you think about the upcoming release and availability of all the 100s of new gTLD's (.web, .site, .app, .store, .shop, etc...) later this year and into 2014? How do you think this is going to impact the search engine optimization and marketing world' and the entire internet landscape as a whole?

Probably will have a very small impact. I don't think it will change SEO at all, and I think .com will still be the gold standard for brands and brands will be the gold standard for ranking well.

What is your advice to a young boy, interested in SEO? Where should I put my focus on, what to read more (stuff like that)?

Thanks :)

Find one thing you're passionate about and go all out. Check out the examples of Ed Fry (who runs this site, and is ~19 years old) or Mark Collier from OpenAlgorithm, who's only 17!

If you have to pick one thing that can compete Google in Future, what it should be ? 

Lots of individual brands in specific verticals, e.g. Kayak in travel, Craigslist in jobs & rentals, Zillow in real estate, etc. Fighting with Google on broad search is going to be insanely hard.

Thank you Rand. Your answer has a million dollar secret in it. ;)

In terms of percentages in your opinion what is the gap between Page 2 and Page 1 in search.  I know that it can't be defined number but is the GREAT DIVIDE between Page One and Page Two theere - do you think Google set the virtual bar high to getting there?

There's a big bar in terms of visibility and click through rate (though I think #11 still gets more clicks than #10), but I don't think there's some sort of extra algorithmic cutoff or leap to be able to be on page 1 vs. moving from #11 to #10.

Just how important is YELP in the scheme of things for a law firm?  I've claimed the listing and created a thorough profile - but my boss is obsessed with the "activity" each month.  How can I explain to him for his market the importance or lack  there of ?  HELP!

It's potentially important, but really depends on how visible the listing is, how many people reference it, whether new clients mention it as a big lead source, etc. I wouldn't discount it, but I'd also make sure to report on all the other things that might influence opinions about the firm (Yelp probably isn't the only one).

You have been through a lot in 2012 and I hope 2013 will be a lot easier, fruitful and happier for your business and your family. How have you dealt with everything and managed to continue to be resilient and professional?

I've done a few things to try to step back and have more balance, though they've been minor: http://moz.com/rand/there-is-no-worklife-balance/

Have you read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and if you have...

What are some ways an Inbound Marketing or SEO agency can effectively incorporate lead & agile principles into their processes with both project based and retainer based clients?

Hi Savvy Panda! (if this isn't Gabe or Luke, tell them I said hello!)

We are huge fans of The Lean Startup book and methodology. 

We use a kanban board to manage A/B testing and experiments for all of our companies. Just like you would write hypothesis for a product, we do that for all things marketing. IE: If we had a shorter H1 tag on our homepage, we would increase our visit-lead conversion % by x. Then we run A/B tests to determine the result. We do this for copy, images/colors, layouts etc.. on both our landing pages and our main marketing site. We also do "lean" for different keyword campaigns. IE: If we targeted a new keyword group X, we would increase our visits OR conversion %'s by y. Or we have done one in the vein of: If we increased our blogging by 15%, we would see an increase in visits, leads or customers. Depending on what we are trying to focus on. Then we set appropriate time frames/criteria surrounding the test length and let it run!

I'm sure you were looking for an answer from Rand :) But hope this helps!

It's really a philosophy and process book, along with lots of compelling stories and examples. I think adapting the principles to marketing are certainly very do-able and can be valuable. The only thing I'd advise against is getting too "minimum" with an MVP. Spamming a few sites for link drops could be thought of as an "MVP" for SEO, but that would be foolish and dangerous. Also, when it comes to content and content marketing, you probably want to err on the side of making things SUPER amazing, not "MVP." The latter just doesn't do that well.

Hi Rand, I have been doing link building for around 8 months and I would like to know what are some tools and tips that you could give me to learn more about overall SEO. I follow your blogs and SEOmoz.com blog daily. Great job!

The Beginner's Guide to SEO is probably the best I can do: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo. You might also check out my Slideshare channel - I share lots of tools and tips via slide decks: http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/presentations

What have you learned/discovered from the current iteration of your personal blog at moz.com/rand that has surprised you the most?

It's really, really hard to get traffic, even if you know a lot :-) I'm lucky to get 400-500 people reading a Moz.com/Rand post. 25K will read nearly every post on SEOmoz.org!

That's quite surprising. For me it is regularly thought-provoking and I often feel compelled to comment.

I reckon if you stick with it you'll make it one day! 

I love you Rafish

Somebody hold my purse (starts taking out earrings). 

Lol

Rand,

I have a soft, friendly nature. I love giving people positive feedback. But often my job as a team leader/manager calls for doing just the opposite - letting them know what they've done wrong. Sometimes it means warning, reprimanding, and yes - firing. I feel that it is crucial to maintain a positive atmosphere and a friendly, open relationship between all team members, including - especially -  management. But it's a balancing act. I love my job, but sometimes I wonder if I'm tough enough or if my friendly rapport hurts the productivity and performance of the team.

I've been following you closely for over a year now (and learned a lot) and I would guess that you have had similar internal struggles. You are one of the most positive, friendly, and genuinely warm people I know. And you are a leader. In your position, there are inevitably situations where you have to disagree, criticize, reprimand, and fire employees - situations where others will disagree with your outlook and perceive your decisions as unfair and possibly even cruel. 

Please share your thoughts and advice, your personal experiences and outlook on this subject. It would be immensely appreciated.

Fantastic question Yair, but it's such a big one I think it will take a blog post at least to tackle this. The big things I'd say in this quick format would be:

- Be careful in assuming you know everything and that you're always right. Being the "boss/manager" often reinforces false confidence.
- If someone's doing something wrong, correcting and mentoring and helping is great. Just saying "you're wrong, do it my way," sucks and isn't productive. However, if it's motivation that's wrong or the values behind them, then it's more of a "our way or the highway." Having political struggles or people who are only doing work to make themselves look good or others bad is a recipe for disaster and needs to be cut out.

Thanks so much for the quick tips, Rand. I'm looking forward to the blog post - and more "Ask Me Anything"s.

What's one of your favorite stories you enjoy sharing when you're in a small social gathering?

I like telling stories from our travels. Geraldine does it better than I do, though, which is why her blog is so great: http://www.everywhereist.com

How does a typical day look like for Rand Fishkin? 

How do you balance work and personal life? Do you find time to hit the gym? Do you watch movies? Do you find time to read books?

I don't balance much :-) No gym, maybe a movie once a month, I do a lot of reading, but only a little for personal, mostly professional/work stuff.

I'll try to do a "typical day" post on my blog at some point in the future. Usually I wake up between 8-9am, work for an hour, run to the office, have meetings with a lot of Mozzers and a few external folks, come home between 5:30-7:30pm, eat dinner with G, maybe watch an episode of something on TV with her, chat about our days, then work again from 10pm-2am.

Thanks Rand! 

Looking forward for your "typical day" blog post. :)

Search engines aside - which companies analytics and webmaster tools account do you think you could learn the most from if you were permitted access for a day?

Would love to see inside SurveyMonkey more, since they're so similar to our business model. Same with 37Signals, Netflix, and Salesforce.

What are the biggest SEO changes you see happening to local in 2013.  Curious since your investment in David Mihm and his outfit.

Actually, we can just go directly to the source: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33995/How-Local-Search-Will-Evolve-in-2013-6-Predictions.aspx from David himself!

Two questions:

1. Blog related: I've seen several blogs using very long excerpts of their posts on their main page or categories, and some blogs use no excerpt at all. What would you recommend from an SEO point of view, especially do avoid duplicate content and category pages ranking sometimes higher than the articles themselves? (as a small follow-up, would you "noindex, follow" the categories and pages 2+ of the main page?)

2. Name three link building tools for competitor analysis and outreach (sans OSE) that you would use for a non-english language international website.

1) Depends on the blog, but generally I focus the excerpt on making it very compelling to want to click & read the rest, less so on keyword-based SEO or that stuff. On category pages, I'd probably leave it alone unless there's a visible problem. Google's pretty good at figuring that stuff out.

2) Google (even though you can't search for links, you can find brands/mentions very well), Yandex, and Majestic.

If you're REALLY worried about duplicate content over your blog's pagination, you can use rel="next" and rel="prev" to alleviate the problem. Here's a useful guide from Google: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html As Rand (and this guide) say, though, you're probably best off leaving it be. :)

I saw that SEOmoz was ranked the best place to work in Seattle. What's your golden advice to manage of web/tech/software/SEO teams?

I'm not sure that we were ranked there for our software management chops :-) I'd probably pass that question along to Anthony Skinner, our CTO. He's done some remarkable things in that realm. Maybe he'll write a blog post about it!

Hi Rand - like you, I've started a business with my mom before. We ran a Tex-Mex restaurant - she did hiring, R&D, pricing, and traditional PR (she had contacts with reporters and food bloggers). I did the website, blog, menu design, promotional activities, hosted happy hour events, and was a wait staff at night. We got a lot of press, traffic, but eventually shut down after a year.

How did the synergy work between you and Gillian, and how did you settle differences in opinion?

I think in the early days, we agreed on a lot of things. As differences came up, we found good processes to resolve, and eventually put a formal structure in place with the investment from Ignition (board of directors, formal CEO role, etc). It was hard, but it worked out OK.

Have you guys had to do any SEO rep management for yourselves.  If so, what happened, how did it go, and what did you learn from it?

Not much. We're so prolific on content production and participation that we've generally overwhelmed the Haterade style articles before they became a problem. That said, I'm pretty darn frustrated with our Wikipedia entry right now, which is all sorts of wrong, and the Wikipedia editors are a particularly intolerant, dogmatic, and not-fun-to-deal-with bunch.

If you were starting a new company today, and had the option of hiring either an A+ sales executive or an A+ content creator.. which do you choose?

I don't think SEOMoz has a sales team still...

I love inbound marketing and I hate sales, so it would be a content creator FOR SURE. Business models that require sales teams certainly do amazing things (and most all SaaS businesses have them except us), but I don't think it's the model of the future.

Rand, read Daniel Pink's book? "To Sell is Human" - would you venture to refute that at all? To make this a question, Kindle or traditional books? How many a week/month? 

Hi Rand, Nicole from she-seo/ger - is there any posibility to give google diffrent title/descriptions if you are using variable languages? I don't talk of to seperat domains with diffrent tlds, but from the "usual" one like example.com/en/ example.com/de/

You can specify country targeting in GWMT. More here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-dropping-the-information-dust from our very own Gianluca :-)

What SEO question(s) do you think hard to answer?

Did you happen to see my tweet at you, Wil Reynolds, Michael King etc. about doing one of these on reddit? Did I inspire this? JUST KIDDING 

What types of strategies would you use to link build for small business clients with smaller budgets and less resources? 

It was actually Ed Fry's idea! But he may have gotten it from your tweet :-)

Hi Rand. What is the power of your contact lens? ;)

I don't know off the top of my head, but it's pretty high. I have terrible eyes.

What are creative yet simple & effective way of link building?

Hi Rand, Which is the best pagination technique to follow.... AJAX pagination or the regular ones with /page/*.

How can i make carrier in seo 

Hi Rand!

Thank you so much for doing an AMA. I love how you and the SEOmoz team continually strives to model your TAGFEE code. 

1) What concerns about privacy do you have as we move further into a open data world? How do you model data and privacy integrity with SEOmoz, and what do you recommend for businesses and brands moving forward? 

2) What top three skills or products should a new inbound marketer learn and love? How are they fundamental to their current clients and their career? 

3) If you could create your dream app or program, what would it be? 

4) What's on your Think Geek wishlist? :P 

Thanks again! 
-Rebecca

What do you think about Facebook's new Graph Search. How will it impact SEO industry ?

Hi Rand, Who do you think will win the Super Bowl ?

Hiya! G here. Rand had an appointment, so I told him I was going to fill in and answer all the questions I knew the answer to.

Here's what I think Rand would say:

With regard to the Superbowl, I pretty much stopped caring after this weekend, when Green Bay and Seattle and the Broncos were knocked out. So at this point, "Anyone but the Patriots" would be a desirable outcome. However, it looks like not very much stands in the way of (ugh) Brady and another ring. Here's hoping Kaepernick can give him a run for his money. Or a Ravens win might be interesting, too.

What she said! :-)

I think "Anybody but the Patriots" is an idea that all reasonable people can drink to!

Can i have a link?

:)

Sure. Where?

http://soliddelivery.co.uk/ would be great, cheers.

haha...... that didn't take long. 

What is your full name?

S. Rand Mitchell Fishkin. The "S" doesn't stand for anything. It's just a letter, weirdly :-)

Like the J in Homer J. Simpson :)

Hi rand my site is http://www.hospitality-school.com/ . I have been hit hard by penguin and EMD update. I have deleted 200+ bad backlinks and reported to google for reconsideration. Still don't see any improvement. Can you please give me some quick suggestion plz?

James Daugherty asks you - "Who is more hipster, you or me?"

I suspect Mr. Fishkin would reply that James is, since he doesn't see himself as a hipster. Even though he owns a ukulele. Which I think ranks pretty highly on the scale of hipsterdom.

Yeah, for sure it does rank pretty high... but so amazed to know that! Make a video of him playing the ukelele please! :)

Seconded.

Whiteboard Friday "?Basic Ukelele Chord Progressions" anyone?

Thirded.

Or a uke cover of 'Still Searching' by the Kinks

John Doherty pointed out his thick framed glasses and beard add to level of hipsterdom.

Have you ever slept with someone for a link (male or female) ?

Where the hell did that come from!?

Aaaannnddd there goes the neighbourhood :D Is that based on personal experience?

If only I was as good looking as Rand! :)

LOL! Hope it was worth it :D

Do I count? If so, then ... maybe. I'd like to think his motivations were a little purer than that, though. 

Yup. Her. Snuck out of our bedroom late at night and logged onto Everywhereist using her computer. Super black hat :-)

*?Recorded for training purposes*

Why you moved your personal blog to moz.com?

For fun! And to test some SEO stuff (like could it rank for anything - answer is... sort of) :-)

I'll ask a question about a bone I have to pick with you ...

So, when you decided to propose was your mission to up the bar so high that the rest of us couldn't possibly compete.

(For those of you unfamiliar with what this "jerk" did to the rest of us you can see how his proposal went at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxLw2NC0zTk)

Well played Rand.  Well played. :D

I think you need background on this for those who don't know..

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/His-TV-ad-works-Yes-she-ll-marry-him-1227554.php

Especially the whole superbowl part.

Ha! Actually, it wasn't even my idea. It was a kid from Tennessee who started the site/project. I just inherited it from him (he was, apparently, an SEOmoz reader). I never thought it would work out, though!

I just read up on that - really nice effort there. My wife continually beats me over the head with the lame proposal I came up with. I figure she said yes (then married me), so that was the important part, I shouldn't stress!

Rand, are you going to make an SEOMoz chocolate bar? If so (or if not) what type of chocolate bar - would it have caramel, honeycomb, mystery flavours...?

Caramel is my favorite, especially with dark chocolate. Maybe we could get Theo (a local chocolatier in Seattle) to make one for us :-)

Put a whole new meaning on "MozBar"! ;-)

That's the idea ;)

I recently read your "There Is No Work-Life Balance" post from last October, where you mentioned the drains on your health and marriage/personal life that have come with being an entrepreneur. As a young internet marketer with an entrepreneurial bent, is it worth it? What advice would you have to someone who's at the early stage of their career about this work-life balance concept?

 

Depends on what matters to you. Your life only has so many days, and it's tough to spend them all working unless you believe deep down that it's what you want most, and at the exclusion of (most) everything else.

Thanks Rand! Best of luck to you guys at SEOMoz.

Do you know of a rank tracking tool specifically for ORM.

Most rank tracking tools just check for your domain position on a keyword. We are specifically looking for a tool that tracks the top 50 serps for brand keywords and marks the fluctuation.( Something along the lines of Rankpanel - problem with them, is that you can't put in your brand keywords yet)

We are also looking for a tool that can track serps in different locations.

Hi Rand, longtime follower and SEOmoz member. I have a few questions/suggestions regarding possible new tools for SEOmoz -

1. Ranking system similar to Alexa - Everyone knows that third-party measurement tools like Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, Nielsen etc. are usually wildly inaccurate and in some cases, easily manipulated. And Google PR is not a good metric to focus on either. However, since these data sources are usually the only ones available to advertisers, they are still critical in determining how much money can be charged to advertise on a particular site or how much a domain name/website is worth to a potential buyer. So I think this space is ripe for disruption and SEOmoz could be the company to make it happen (I've always thought Google should make an Alexa-killer but they don't do AMAs!). Since you have the huge index with OSE, would you be able to create an Internet-wide ranking system that is influenced only by your internal algorithm (domain authority, page authority, backlinks, etc) and not by user toolbars or ISP data? It would be great to see a site's "SEOmoz Ranking" of 355,392 one month and then 282,593 the next month and it actually meaning something.

2. Competitive keyword research tool similar to SEMRush.com - I love SEMRush but I think it would be great if SEOmoz offered a similar tool where you can enter in any URL and it returns the keywords the site ranks for organically. I'm assuming that since you already have the crawlers and indexes for OSE that it would be easy to set up (but I'm no engineer so I actually have no idea how much of an undertaking it would be!) Or maybe SEOmoz could just acquire SEMRush! :) 

#1 - Totally agree. Been in our plans for a long time. We still need to get more data sources and do a lot of other work, but I think it's possible.

#2 - Yeah, that's a cool feature for sure. We haven't gone down that path yet, but maybe...

Who's your favourite wrestler?

Hulk Hogan. Used to watch him on TV when I was 7 years old taking out The Undertaker and that meany Randy Savage.

How awesome was it when Obama came out at Whitehouse correspondent's dinner to "I am a real American"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mzJhvC-8E

Hi Rand, what would you say are the biggest things to keep in mind when working with Global brands in the B2B world. We are building a new site for a large client and I have suggested bringing multiples countries under one root domain now i need to know how to keep it organized for crawlability and the rest of the team?

Also, what role will SEOmoz be taking in its upcoming integration with Marketo in the future?

Whew. Big question - probably better for www.seomoz.org/q or the like

I think it's our link data that will be available inside Marketo, but not 100% sure. Andrew's been working on that one.

Hi Rand,

If you were to conduct an SEO workshop for free in any country, where would it be, and why? :)

I do lots of speaking, but not a lot of workshops... Would love to check out Korea and Nepal someday.

Hello from italy Rand. Imagine you have have a consulting Seo agency (a-la-Distilled): What are the best criteria to evaluate Junior and Senior specialists to hire ? 

What should Google be doing better to encourage white-hat and discourage black-hat SEO?

Be more transparent! Show what works and what doesn't. Help showcase small sites that do great white hat SEO, and maybe have a public list of sites they've banned or penalized for violating their guidelines. That could strongly influence folks to make the right choice :-)

In which company would you invest (not Moz) if you had the possibility of doing so at the moment? ... and why?  Thanks for the AMA Rand :) 

I'm a sucker for Maptia - love their plans :-) They're probably too early stage, though.

Honestly, I haven't spent enough time thinking about that question. Will noodle on it and keep my eyes open!

How would you rate on-page content versus a solid link building campaign as being more or less effective for a start up company?  It seems that before Penguin it was link building, but now it seems that solid on page content is more effective, especially for small business that are launching a campaign.

Why won't you do a head-to-head with me? Kidding. My real question: What kind of machine learning filter do you use for some of the whiz-bangy stuff that Linkscape does? Bayesian? Something else? If it's too secret, I understand.

I don't honestly know. We'd need to check with Matt & crew, but I'm sure they'd be happy to share. Feel free to shoot me an email reminder and I'll include it!

What are the main parameters in the selection of keywords? When I`m get via GAKT more than 1000 keywords how do I know which keywords are the best? All the best Rand :)

Rand,

What are some great Seattle digital marketing agencies or good in-house places. They don't have to be specific to SEO. I'm aware of Portent and Distilled.

Thanks!

Sheesh. Who else do you need to know? :P

Addthree is also quite good, but I don't know any others well beyond those!

Have you ever had an awesome idea for a marketing campaign (could be a tv-spot, a banner advert, mini-site or other form of content) that you wanted to do for a huge brand that wasn't your client? 

Did you ever pitch them on it? And if so, how did you go about it?

Just for giggles too, if you have what was it?

No - never done that (or had that crazy big brand idea). I think Mike King has had some of those, and has executed on a few, too!

Thanks for doing this AMA Rand! I'll let you pick from two questions:

What mistakes do you see companies making when they file for a Disavow or attempt to recover from a Penguin penalty?

 or

What is the greatest obstacle SEO face in terms of client relations and how do they shoot themselves in the foot?   

Rand - what is the one mistake that you see most often when businesses embark on a social media marketing campaign?

Also, what would you be doing if you weren't a marketer? 

Which speakers do you enjoy most that have delivered memorable presentations and who should we watch out for this year?

Annie Cushing has gotten better and better. Patrick Mackenzie (aka patio11) has done some terrific ones this year, too.

What would you say is your most successful offline marketing campaign that wasn't conference related?

We've done some good recruiting and press stuff in the Seattle area that's certainly helped, but we don't do much offline marketing - low ROI, hard to track, and isn't something we have great experience with.

what were some of your most-beloved 80s cartoons? - I represent with #mask and #he-man

muh-muh-muh-mask... MASK!

Mask was total awesome sauce... still have all the toys in boxes, gonna make a MINT someday off of those babies...

Can't believe Rand didn't answer this one (suspect he didn't see it) but I know for a fact he loved the Transformers and Thundercats. I don't know if he watched a lot of MASK, sadly. 

Thundercats was my jam!  SNARF... http://youtu.be/IO3ZbQiGNkk

thanks for replying, Geraldine

Transformers for sure, with Go-bots a distant second. Voltron was great, too.

maaaannn remember how hype we all were for T-former the movie in '86, and good call, Voltron was a serious cartoon.

Name five sites you visit on a daily basis, except for SEOmoz?

He shared something similar in 2010: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/best-seo-blogs-top-10-sources-to-stay-uptodate

Martijn, you or anyone else know you can make links here by highlighting them and using the floating toolbar. Like THIS dude. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/best-seo-blogs-top-10-sources-to-stay-uptodate

ps. Spammers pls note. I flag more than Charlie Whiting.

Thanks Paul. To be fair to Martijn, it's not entirely obvious. It's beautifully subtle, but people are missing it. Perhaps auto-linking any http://www...?

alas too many don't adore the littlebigdetails that abound.

I did not know this, thanks! Now, time to link!

Twitter, Hacker News, Slate, Slog, Reddit, Inbound.org, Metafilter, Google+, Bit.ly, Everywhereist, Techmeme, Quora. Not every one every day, but pretty darn close.

How do you found your so amazing wife?

Met her on the bus coming back from a Weezer concert in college :-)

Thanks for your answer! You are a lovely couple :D
Btw I like the Weezer's too :)

Rand,

I watched your Whiteboard Friday titled "

Prediction: Anchor Text is Weakening...And May Be Replaced by Co-Occurrence

"(http://www.seomoz.org/blog/prediction-anchor-text-is-dying-and-will-be-replaced-by-cocitation-whiteboard-friday), and had a few questions for you.

In today's SEO world, how important is it to use keywords in anchor text?  Is it better to use naked (branded) anchor text, and fill the surrounding content with the keywords in which you are targeting (w/ out keyword stuffing)?

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks man.

Sorry about the large bold, I copied/pasted and there was no way to change it. 

Looking forward to your response.

Pro tip: If you use Ctrl + Shift + V it won't paste the formatting. 

Still important, but depends where you're getting them and how. If it's manipulative or the source is non-trustworthy, I'd be worried. Branded anchor text is generally safer (though link source still matters). Using surrounding keywords is, IMO, going to be a rising tactic the next few years, though association through raw co-occurrence will matter some, too.

What are some precise parameters to gauge the success of a SEO campaign?

Can you please elaborate the role of Tumblr/StumbleUpon in SEO?

Alright, my turn... :)

Imagine you're talking to set of bright University students who despite getting good grades, have ?no real clue what to do with their life - let alone how to get there. How would you sell a career in inbound marketing, and what ?crucial steps would you suggest they do ?to nail an awesome first job in inbound marketing?

Comments really don't like me today :(

Dude. You suck at formatting! :-)

I'd probably tell them about my career, share some stories of others in the field, talk about the distribution of the web's clicks and how they bias to organic vs. paid and that it's a fantastic field filled with job opportunity.

Steps to get an awesome job... Hmm... Might have to do a blog post about that.

Yes, a great blog post on getting an awesome job. ?Students *need* to hear it :)

Hey Rand,

SEO isn't really SEO anymore. Now we have to include social media, conversion rate optimization, content creation, etc. If a new internet marketer had to pick a single specialization, what would you advise them to choose?

Whatever they're most passionate about. The things you love to do are the things it's easy to get good at. Don't choose based on what you think will earn you the most money - weirdly, that, too, will usually follow your passion.

Thanks Rand!

We've been hearing many opinions on the future of search. Some say 2013 is all about structured data, some say social, some say cell phones & tablets. We feel like it's always going to vary on the project/budget. How do you feel about search in 2013?

Rand - What would you say is the one most important concept or idea that you have been taught as an entrepreneur, and who was the teacher (mentor - aside from probably Gillian) ? 

In my early days in the search field, Danny Sullivan and Aaron Wall were always really nice to me, and gave me a lot of great advice and help. Later on, Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot and I would spend hours on the phone late nights talking through our businesses. And lately, it's been Brad Feld and Jerry Colonna.

Thanks :) Was there one core concept or idea that stands out above the rest?

People was always a big one - getting the right people on the team and the wrong ones off.

Thanks again Rand. My experiences have been very similar, people make all the difference. Cheers.

Two trains leave the station at the same time, one heading east and the other west. The eastbound train travels at 65KM per hour. The westbound train travels at 75KM per hour.
Which one ranks higher in Google?

The one that's hosted on Wikipedia.org :-)

Hello Good Sir,

My question is: In an industry that only ever knows about 4-6 of Google's 200+ algorithm, the term "expert" seems to be used very frequently in the SEO world. Do you think anyone is ever an "expert" in SEO besides Matt Cutt and Google's webmaster team, do you think we should take on a more realistic approach like Doctors and Lawyers and say we "practice" SEO? How affects do you see from using the term "expert" so often that the meaning becomes diluted over time?

?? I suspect you're very new to the field Jason. Most good SEOs know most of the major factors that Google uses to rank pages. It's not the secrecy of the algorith, it's the challenge of execution that makes SEO (and all of marketing hard). I like to say that even  if we got a copy of Google's algorithm and understood every piece of it, we'd probably do very little differently.

Hi Rand! Here goes... if you were starting SEOmoz today, what would you call it?  (assume SEOmoz name/domain is taken)

Maybe Tagfee? Or just Moz :-)

Hi Rand, I saw you talk about this at Search Love London and would love to know your answer: 

You are a spy tracking an individual who is staying in a high end hotel. You need to record all audio from his room for the duration of his stay. You have his name but you do not know which room is his. What do you do?

Good answers here: http://www.quora.com/You-are-a-spy-tracking-an-individual-who-is-staying-in-a-high-end-hotel-You-need-to-record-all-audio-from-his-room-for-the-duration-of-his-stay-You-have-his-name-but-you-do-not-know-which-room-is-his-What-do-you-do

lol.. They should change it to...

You are a spy tracking Matt Cutts who is staying in the Google plex. You need to record all algorithms from his PC for the duration of his employment with Google. You know which computer he uses but not which hard drive he stores the secret data on. What do you do?

Hi, What is better SEO or PPC?
Secondly I have started new website of comics. Can you give me any suggestion to make it popular.

Thanks.

You have not answer my question. :(

Rand, Do you REALLY think any innocent sites got caught in the Penguin update?

Probably at least a few, but my opinion is the number was extremely small.

Could you talk a little bit about the future you foresee in relation to semantic graphs/data and social graphs/data?

Semantic is already here. Google uses entity extraction and topic modeling and semantic connectivity (read Bill Slawski's SEO by the Sea for more) today. Social graph is used a little, but it can do much, much more. I think we've seen that with Google+ and a little w/ Facebook graph search (too early to really say there). The social proof element of social graph + search is the most powerful, IMO. I don't totally subscribe to the idea that people only want to see what their friends recommend when they do websearch, but I do believe they may be swayed by knowing that their friends liked/shared something that showed up in the SERPs.

Rand,

Regarding anchor text,  should I be more worried about keywords that surround my anchor text rather than using keywords in my anchor text?  

Not "more worried," but at least thoughtful and strategic.

Thanks for this opportunity to ask you anything :-) I just wanna know what is the current off-page SEO ranking factor. I am not getting 1st spot results even by optimizing website through new tactics. So will be great if you can let me know what off-page SEO factor is important?

Thanks

Biggest one I see still moving the needle is lots of editorial links from trustworthy unique root domains. Anchor text still helps, too.

Whitehat SEO sucks. Can't scale that shit -- unrealistic -- good luck boys

Nice comment bro, tell me why?

Oh man. You're right! There's no way any of these folks:

- Yelp
- NYTimes
- SurveyMonkey
- The Verge
- Etsy
- Amazon
- Zillow

Will ever succeed with SEO at scale! :-)

Hey Rand, thanks for doing this!

A couple questions if I may:

1) What would be the one change you made in your company to make the ratio of employees to profits more favourable? Was it going the SaaS route to take advantage of its scalability?

2) I have a new educational startup devoted to crowd-sourced social media tips called http://www.SocialMediaTips.com and I want to get the word out with the lowest budget possible. Do you have any suggestions? (I know it is a big question so even one great tip would be helpful)

Thanks!

1) We haven't really focused on that yet. In the early stages, getting growth and profitability are far more important than revenue/employee. That type of optimization is usually more important in later stages (though it depends - with lifestyle/non-investor-backed businesses, it can be more important to the execs/founders).

2) The site's look and feel (and overall UX) feels 10 years old. I wouldn't trust the content EVEN if it were great, because the UX is so rough. I'd invest there first - make it worthy of appearing on a list like this: http://theultralinx.com/2012/08/20-gorgeous-web-design-inspiration-part-2.html then worry about the rest.

One question. What metrics would you use to rate an SEO company?

Hey Rand,

I'm year removed from leaving an agency job to start my own SEO agency. I've made it this far through sheer luck and a little bit of grittiness but am still struggling.

What would you do today or what did you do when you started the consulting side of SEOmoz to help it grow?

I wish I'd had a network of folks who'd previously scaled consulting companies to lean on for advice and help. I've done much more of that in software and it's been hugely helpful.

Where do you think SEO will be in 5 years time?  

Where do you place your 'desire to prove them wrong' (pretty sure I remember you talking about this at some point) in the attributes that have made you successful? 

Pretty damn high. I wrote a lot about it here: http://moz.com/rand/you-cant-do-it-is-powerful-motivation/ It's definitely still a driver.

What you put forth while doing a business - profit or employee satisfaction?

It's my core belief that the latter will lead to the former, and that if you focus on the former over the latter, you'll get neither.

Do you love SEO? If yes who is the top 5 person related to SEO that you follow?

I do love SEO! Good list of sites/people I follow here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/best-seo-blogs-top-10-sources-to-stay-uptodate

Hi Rand,

Great offer to catch you ...:)

I want to ask you about some off page activities questions and here is my questions:

1. As we all know old off page activities not work any more like social bookmarking , directory submission and etc. so please explain correct list of off page activities which will help in ranking and which also drive traffic to our website?

2. Is link wheel is still working or its better to ignore it?

3. Is blog comment and forum signature still working?

4. What is best idea to establish brand? is there any paid marketing is needed for brand promotion? and if yes then please share best paid marketing sources.

Thanks.

Jemin

Hi Rand,

Is there any planning to set up SEOMOZ conference set up in India? As India is a big source of IT outsourcing so many people would like to join this types of confereace if you people just set up here

No plans for India as of now, but I know Gillian (my co-founder and Moz's former President) is there for the month of January speaking at a lot of events.

Why you don't say Gillian as your mom?

ok... Rand if possible then also give answer for my first question regarding off page tactics thanks...

Hi Rand,

Thanks for this AMA :-)

My Question :

Did you ever used any single black hat technique for SEOmoz or any other site? What was that? If yes, you felt proud or guilty after using it?

Totally did back in the day :-) Check out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-biggest-seo-mistakes-seomoz-has-ever-made

Hii Guys ....my name is not ashima.....this is also an anonymous uer.....

This is an amazing start to cover all the seo fellows and their experiences at one place. I want to ask a question which has not been starting yet now.Please take it seriously i will be thankful to all of you.
As we know Google is made up of database so it's crawlers and spiders when go through our websites.they are in the search of the things which they already don't have. After the merging of yahoo and Bing Google instantly launch its panda algorithm.As may be Google somewhere feared about the database limit of them both.
Is Google penalizing the websites with duplicate content because it's system spend a lot of time for reviewing it and when it find as duplicate it punish as you try to cheat him.
We are providing the unique and fresh data to Google for just Rankings as Google is the leading search engine and we dn't have other good options for grabbing the business from Internet.

The world is all about the database my dear friends.I have heard from where that Google rise up in the starting days as it bought the database from Dmoz. and some where Google make the world necessity and addiction for him.

What is your take on the Facebook Graph Search?

Do you think it stands face-to-face against Google and other search engines?

How much beneficial it gonna be for social media campaigning?

Search for graph search - it's been commented on a few times - mostly it's too early to tell.

Won't help if your most of your fb friends aren't local to you.  Most of mine live 400+ miles away.

What is the Normal Click Through Rate for  YouTube Videos?

As a SEO expert, what programming languages are a must-learn do you think?

Hi Rand, 
I'm just a passionate webdev who likes copywriting and seo and I wanted to ask you 3 simple question

1. From a SEO point of view, what's the most terribly wrong thing to do when it comes to optimizing a new website?
2. What are 3 things that are a total waste of time (or resource) when optimizing? 
3. What would you do to rank high  with a new (small) website and no other websites (that you own) to help it grow ?

Thank you, and BTW SeoMoz & Inbound Rocks :)
PS this is my first post, go easy on me ;)

Andrea, I think you'd be best served here - http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo and here - http://www.seomoz.org/q 

But a short answer would be - content is king. 

Hi Nick, thanks for answering. 
Even though the answer isn't totally what I expected :) I will look at those links.
Consider that I successfully build a 3 page website with a good optimization (1st on google for a small subset of terms). But I was interested in aiming higher with no budget.

BTW: I agree on content is king
Have a nice day ;)

Hi Rand,

Google authorship is now coming up like a BIG thing from Google, I have two questions related to Google Authorship:

1) Google Authorship and its influence on ranks in next 1-2 years

2) Google Authorship is to link the content with individual authors and the best way to use Google Authorship is to use this with blogs, news and stuff which is not static, for example: using Google Authorship with your web pages?? I see many folks are using Google Authorship on their website pages. In case, your answer is yes, should we use multiple authors for the same websites..For example: I am running a company which deals in SEO, Web Design, PPC and I have different static/landing pages for these services.. So I will link my SEO page with my Head Of SEO's G+ profile , PPC page with my PPC head Google + profile and so on... So, it is worth doing or it is sort of SPAM, because on the ground reality is that the page content is written by content writers not industry experts..

Over to you..

Thanks

Salik

Thanks for doing this AMA, Rand!

Any online tools/software that you can not live without?
What country/place have you and Geraldine ever wanted to go (back)?  

Nowadays there is a lot of focus on content and very little (unless I'm mistaken) on what I believe to be the bedrock of any campaign - solid keyword research. I'd love to know your thoughts about doing keyword research, can you share any with us?

negative SEO on Google

Yeah it sounds crazy :) but i was wondering what if I start submitting URL of Google on its behalf in say 10000000000 article directories, bookmarking and directories with the exact matched key phrase - "Search Engine"? Probably it may take 150 years for me to cover this but does it worth the effort? Can we make the ranking of Google slide in the term "search engine" in Google.com?

Hi Rand,

Great to see you do this 1 and 1 questionnaire, loving it:) My question -

What are some of the fun activities that you have at SEO Moz and how is the work culture like?

Hello Rand!

Howdy!!! ( First word for each White board Friday )

It feels good as I got the opportunity to ask a question to the future ( or God ) of Search Engine!

One imaginary question => If you got legal authority to rollback (or cancel) the algorithm of Google(which are happened periodically from 2009-10) then which one you will choose?

and one practical Question => Which strategy is best for quality backlink building for informative sites or Adsense based website so that chances of hitting by any update, from Google, get reduced?

Hi Rand,

What you think about the impact of FB search over Google, will fb be adding results from bing into Graph search? will this reduce the Google share in search market. The future of FB search seems to be getting user the best local result & if they succeed in this then Google will be taking the punch.

what's your positive & negative opinion about this? 

Search for 'graph search' there's plenty of questions about this.

I have one more doubt which I want to make clear:

I have a website with more than 20k pages, I created a new site(same domain) with seo friendly URLs etc but i am not able to redirect the old dynamic URLs to the new seo friendly URLs. The site is asp & contains more than 20k pages.

The site is having more than 14k backlinks, what is the best way which you prefer so that I don't loose any present traffic & backlinks. 

Can I offer a software feature for SEOMOZ? It has something to do with looking for qualified and ready to buy leads. I've already tested it to different industries and I've successfully deliver leads. Rand, can you help me make it profitable? I've been receiving offers from different investors but I don't know them and I don't know if I can trust them. Can you help me?

Hi Rand, 

My question is this, My websites have only limited number of backlinks (Less than 30), but my business brand name is very popular in social media and continuously I'm sharing/posting social updated and create stuff in almost all social media sites. But from there I'm getting only NoFollow backlinks.

Is my site will be rank in Google only with the support of social media sites ? or Should I need huge number of backlinks ?

what about the seo to forums ? these days > also especially ? vbulletin?

Rand, I'd like to suggest an lower monthly plan for moz. As a small business I loved my free trial but the price was just to high for small contracting company. I just want to manage my one site. 

Hi Rand, Recently i faced a slight shuffle in my keywords ranking not only for one project but for almost all of them. Whats the reason behind it, waiting for your response.

Hello Rand sir, 

     How do you entertain yourself in free time if you have ? . . .i know you are enough busy person.

This question was answered above. 

-----

No gym, maybe a movie once a month, I do a lot of reading, but only a little for personal, mostly professional/work stuff.

I'll try to do a "typical day" post on my blog at some point in the future. Usually I wake up between 8-9am, work for an hour, run to the office, have meetings with a lot of Mozzers and a few external folks, come home between 5:30-7:30pm, eat dinner with G, maybe watch an episode of something on TV with her, chat about our days, then work again from 10pm-2am.

-----

Hey Rand,

How important is it for local businesses to include their city in a title, description, or header? or does it even matter?

It matters..of course. There's lots of questions about this in the Q&A forum - www.seomoz.org/q - for instance - http://www.seomoz.org/q/local-seo-title-tag-optimization

My question has to do with local seo. When you create the description of your business for Google Local, should you use the same description for any other directory in which you list the business just as you would with the Business Name, Address, and Phone Number. Or should you change the business description because exact business description may be seen by google as duplicate content?

Hello Rand,

What should you watch out for when working with webinars? Any go-to resources on making this effective?

Trying to leverage my time, but terrified to try this new medium and mess it up with so many people.

Hi Rand,

I'm optimizing a flight and miles search site called 30k.com, can you give any suggestion to me? Just name 3 methods that you come first in mind.

Thanks!