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Future SERP: A Glimpse at Google 2014

Posted by Dr-Pete

Watching Google change can quickly become an obsession, and it’s easy to jump at every shadow when they test thousands of ideas per year (and roll out hundreds). This post is an attempt to take all of the things I’ve seen in the past six months and tell a story driven by real data. This is the story of how I think Google will look by the end of 2014, and what that implies about their direction and core philosophy.

Two data sources

(1) MozCast Feature Alert

In April of 2012, I launched “Project Algo Alert”, a prototype that would later become MozCast. What was originally one “weather” station, designed to measure daily fluctuations in top 10 rankings across 1000 keywords, has evolved into 11 stations and three unique systems. One of those systems is Feature Alert, which was based on a simple idea – how could we detect when Google launched new SERP features, without any prior knowledge of what those features would be?

Feature Alert solves this problem by cataloging the basic building blocks of Google’s source code, the container names and IDs in CSS. Let’s say for example, that Feature Alert sees the following chunk of HTML/CSS code:

The system checks each building block against an archive, and if “ads-container c mnr-c” is a new object, it’s captured and I’m alerted that something new happened. When I built Feature Alert, I thought something new might pop up a couple of times a month. As of writing this post, the system has captured 2,441 unique building blocks.

A side effect of the system is that, at large scale, it frequently catches Google in the act of testing new features and UI changes. Keep in mind that Google ran 7,018 “live traffic experiments” in 2012 – while we probably capture only a small number of them, these tests allow us to get a glimpse into what’s coming next. While any given change may be rejected (Google launched just over 9% of the changes they tested last year), some changes appear repeatedly in testing and in different formats over time, strongly suggesting that Google is intent on launch.

(2) Mobile feature launches

Google is terrified of mobile – the ad landscape that drove 84% of Google’s revenue in Q3 is a completely different animal on mobile, and consumer behavior is evolving rapidly. One clear pattern in 2013 is that many major UI changes hit mobile before they hit desktop. Google is designing for tomorrow’s devices and is desperate to make sure that ad CTR and CPC don’t fall as mobile search volume increases and new devices (like Google Glass) come onto the scene.

When we see a new feature in testing and then realize it already exists on mobile, odds are good that that change is coming to desktop soon. By combining these two data sources, we’ve been able to paint a picture of Google’s near future. Based on the past few months, I’m going to make six predictions for 2014 and turn those six predictions into two conceptual screenshots.

Six predictions

For each of the six predictions below, I’ll provide evidence from MozCast and/or mobile search, along with my confidence in the prediction. These predictions are grouped to tell a story, but are otherwise in no particular order:

(1) New Knowledge Graph – 98%

Since its launch, the vast majority of Google’s Knowledge Graph has been built on a very few data sources (including Wikipedia, Freebase, and the CIA Factbook). The core problem is that these sources are limited and only work well for highly structured data. To expand, Google needs to extract answers from their entire index of the web. Put simply, Google needs to be able to create answers from content. Over the past few months, we’ve seen extensive testing of Knowledge Graph entries like this one:

Notice the “In context” section, which is the bulk of the informational content – this is entirely driven by third-party websites. All of the blue links are links to additional Google searches, but the light-gray links show the original sources. Put simply, Google will soon be building their Knowledge Graph on your data.

It’s interesting to note that the queries we’re seeing this on seem to be fairly broad and/or have a generic intent. When Google launched “in-depth articles”, they made the following statement:

To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category.

It’s very likely that this new Knowledge Graph approach is an attempt to solve the same problem, and that these entries will appear on searches that previously had no Knowledge Graph data. Long story short, this isn’t just a change – it’s an expansion.

Knowledge Graph drives many variations of answer boxes, and so it’s not surprising that we’re also seeing new answer boxes in testing. This answer box was captured from a search for “is pneumonia contagious”:

Unlike traditional answer boxes, this information is being extracted from the index (in this case, kidshealth.org) and treated more like an organic search result. Given that we’ve seen multiple variations of new answer boxes and multiple tests of these new Knowledge Graph entries, my confidence is very high that some version of these features will roll out in the next few months.

(2) Revamped advertising format – 95%

Recently, we’ve seen Google aggressively testing a new and somewhat surprising advertising format (and outside sources have confirmed these tests). It looks something like this (the search was “paella recipe”):

I’ve added the (…) in the middle section, which is more organic results, but the divider marks the top and bottom AdWords blocks. Essentially, Google has added the marker [Ad] to each advertisement, but they’ve removed the current background color and have formatted everything else to be nearly identical to an organic listing.

It may seem surprising that Google would visibly mark ads in this way. I suspect that this isn’t entirely by choice, but is related to Google’s ongoing battle with regulators and their pending settlement with the European Union. If this move seems unlikely to you, consider a second piece of evidence. This is a current search for “paella pans” via my mobile phone (all mobile screenshots come from Safari/iOS7 on an iPhone 5S):

This new format has been running on mobile browsers for a while now, and Google’s widespread testing makes it look like a foregone conclusion for desktop search. This change will have huge implications on both organic and paid CTR in 2014, regardless of the final form. Expect Google to also test and iterate quickly when the new ad format launches.

(3) Ads outside of three blocks – 33%

This prediction is much more speculative and I have no clear evidence to support it, but the potential impact is big enough that I’m going to say it out loud. Once Google is individually labeling ads in the left-hand column (right-hand column ads only get one [Ads] marker at the top, at least in testing), ads will become stand-alone units. In other words, Google will no longer be constrained by fixed blocks at the top and bottom. So, what’s to keep the test above from turning into something more like this (the next image is conceptual, not a captured test):

Individual ads could be interspersed in organic results, impacting the overall effectiveness of any given position in those results. Once Google has the flexibility to move ads, I see no compelling reason to believe that they won’t test new options to improve ad effectiveness. I’ll conservatively put the odds of this change at one in three.

(4) Loss of result count/stats – 80%

This one has serious implications for SEOs, but I think it’s a move that makes sense for Google. Let’s look at the entire screenshot for the “paella recipe” search we dug into previously:

Notice something missing? There’s no light-gray result count at the top of this page (“About 3,270,000 results…”). Google has entirely removed that line of text in this test screen. Truthfully, as much as we rely on these numbers for SEO research (especially with search operators like “site:”), I suspect the additional data has almost no value for everyday search users. It’s taking up prime real estate, and Google could very likely get rid of it.

Scroll back up to the mobile search for “paella pans” and you’ll see that result count data is already gone from mobile. On a mobile phone, that data simply takes up too much valuable space. It’s possible that Google could preserve the data for operators and certain searches, but I have no clear evidence either way. If you’re a search marketer, I would be prepared to lose this data in 2014.

(5) Boxed design for #1 result – 90%

The current incarnation of an expanded #1 organic result has been around for a while – it has an indented set of site-links (up to six, on a normal search, or ten on domain searches) that each have links and short snippets. Google has been testing a number of variations on boxed designs for expanded #1 results, such as the following:

Notice that the entire entry is boxes, as are the individual site-links. The main link is in a larger-than-normal font, and some of the site-links have arrows that pull up related links. Google has been testing many variations on this theme for a couple of months now, but consider that one variation already exists in mobile search (this is a search for our own brand, as Ra Sushi generates local results on mobile):

While the mobile result is constrained to a single column, the overall listing is boxed, with clear dividers between the main result and site-links. Google has been testing variations on this one for a while, and they seem to be worried about getting it right, but by the end of 2014, I’m almost certain that some variation on boxed results for the #1 organic position will launch.

(6) Boxed design for entire page – 50%

It’s easy to assume that this boxed design is purely cosmetic, but I believe it goes much deeper than that. Consider the look of another Google product, Google Now (via my iPhone 5S):

Google Now is divided into what Google calls “cards”, distinct units of information that are individually boxed and can be mixed, matched, and sorted as Google sees fit. Notice how similar this format looks to Google’s mobile search results. As Google expands into new formats, including wearable technology like Google Glass, and as screen sizes diverge – from phones to tablets to desktop and everything in between – it’s going to be increasingly important that they can escape the constraints of a single, fixed-format display. Cards are a natural transition to a flexible and dynamic SERP, allowing Google to mix and match depending on the device you’re using.

Google Now has already started appearing in personalized search results. Consider the following Knowledge Graph entry, produced when I do a brand search for “amazon” while being logged into my Google account:

Google has inserted a personalized card into the Knowledge Graph entry that indicates I have recent orders. Clicking on details produces an answer box containing yet more personalized information. Even the Knowledge Graph entry itself and current answer boxes are card-like, with clear outlines and separation from organic results. Answer boxes are tailor-made for mobile search, and so are Google Now cards.

So, what if Google took this idea to its logical conclusion and created an entire SERP that was divided into individual card-like units? This is how mobile search already looks, as you can see from multiple examples above. This would be a big change for desktop, and I have not seen an entirely card-based SERP in testing, but I’ll put the odds of that development at about even (50/50).

Two SERP concepts

So, what might Google look like by the end of 2014? I’ve come up with two artist’s conceptions (I created them, so take the phrase “artist” loosely). While some aspects of these concepts are based in reality, these are not real Google results (live or in testing). The first is based on my recent flight on Virgin America and a fictional brand search for “virgin america” (click on the image for a full-sized version):

Google 2014 SERP Concept v1

Here we have a completely boxed (card-style) SERP, with the new ad format, Google Now in the Knowledge Graph, and the redesigned #1 organic result with site-links. I’ve added the mobile background color and removed result count data. While I don’t think Google will adopt this exact look and feel, it combines many of the data-driven predictions in this post.

Just for fun, let’s look at a second variation. Here we have a Knowledge Graph result using “In context” data from 3rd-party sources, plus an answer box parsing information from a 3rd-party source. The first ad is placed after the answer box, and a second ad has been inserted after the top two organic results. Again, this is purely conjecture:

Google 2014 SERP Concept v2

While I don’t expect Google to look exactly like either of these concepts by the end of 2014, I think the data strongly suggests that many of these concepts will be in play, and Google will have shifted strongly toward a more card-based design. Add in the expansion of Knowledge Graph and Google’s rush to get mobile right, and I expect significant changes to SEO in the next year. The best we can do is keep our eyes open.

This post was adapted from a presentation at ThenSome San Francisco, called “Future SERP: The Face of Google in 2014” (available on SlideShare). Thanks to SEOGadget for hosting the event and to the audience for a great discussion that helped me vet and develop some of these ideas.


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Top 20 Local Search Ranking Factors: An Illustrated Guide

Posted by MiriamEllis

First published in 2008 by David Mihm, the Local Search Ranking Factors survey of Local SEOs around the globe has become a high point in the year in local search. If you eagerly await this yearly report and comb through it for new insight, then the information in this guide may not come as news to you. I wrote this guide for marketers who are new to the field of local SEO and for local business owners who are flying solo in their efforts to market their companies on the web.

Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 identified 83 foundational ranking factors. This guide takes the top 20 most important factors and offers a succinct, illustrated example of each.

By reading this guide, you will understand both the lingo and the concept of each local search ranking factor. Use this information and you will be on the road to promoting local businesses on the web from a firm and educated foundation. Sound good? Start reading!



1. Proper category associations

Proper category associations are important enough to be ranked #1 in the survey. During the process of creating your Google+ Local page, you will be choosing categories at two distinct points.

When you enter your initial details, you will be selecting a primary category for the business. This is the most important category you will choose.



Then, once inside the dashboard, you will be allowed to select up to nine other categories for your business.



All categories must be chosen from Google’s pre-set category taxonomy. Earlier versions of Google’s dashboard allowed the business owner to custom create categories, but this feature is being phased out.

The concept here is simple. If you wish to appear in the local results for a search like “dentists in denver”, your business must be categorized as a dentist. If it is categorized as a certified public accountant, you have no hope of appearing for your important search terms.

To help you determine which categories are available to describe your business, you can use Mike Blumenthal’s free Google Places for Business category tool. Type in keywords that you feel best describe what your business is and the tool will show you which categories are available. Your choice of categories will often be obvious. A dentist will want to choose “dentist” as his primary category. But, he may wish to perform keyword research and combine that with use of the above tool to discover additional important categories such as “dental clinic” or “cosmetic dentist”.

You will be building listings for your business in a variety of other local business directories and indexes. These platforms will not necessarily offer categories that are identical to those in Google’s system. You must take time to discover the most relevant categories on each platform as you build each listing.

2. Physical address in city of search

Your business is most likely to appear in Google’s pack of local results for searches that either:

  1. Contain the name of the city in which it is physically located, or
  2. Stem from devices based in that city
If you are a chiropractor in San Francisco, you are most likely to appear in the local pack of results for a search like “san francisco chiropractor”, or if someone searches for “chiropractor” from a computer or cell phone based in San Francisco.

This search for “chirporactors san francisco” illustrates this phenomenon, in that all of the results Google is returning in its local pack are for practitioners physically located in that city:

In the above screenshot, you will note that there are no chiropractors in neighboring cities included in these results. It’s safe to say that Google has a very definite bias towards physical location in the city of search. This is a simple concept, but it represents a major stumbling block for two distinct business models.

A) Service area businesses (SABs) with employees who might travel to a city like San Francisco to do plumbing, management consulting, or dog walking, but who are physically based in another city or town. In other words, the SAB does not have a physical address in San Francisco.

B) Brick-and-mortar businesses located just outside the borders of a major city like San Francisco, Dallas, or Denver. An example of this might be a locally-heralded acupuncturist who is located in Mill Valley, California, but who has numerous clients who are happy to travel a few miles outside of San Francisco to visit him.

In both cases, the business owner understandably wants these major city audiences to know his services are available, but because of Google’s bias toward physical location, these businesses are unlikely to ever appear in the local pack of results. As things presently stand with Google, the best hope for these types of business owners is to begin developing city landing pages that showcase their professional association with these other cities, whether this involves windows they wash on the skyscrapers of Dallas or lectures they give at a Denver hospital. The goal here is to gain additional visibility in the organic results for these other geographic terms.

There are some exceptions that may overcome Google’s bias. If you search for a niche business model in or around a major city, or search for any business model in a rural location, you may see listings in the local pack of results that stem from several cities. For example, if there is only one gas station serving a large radius in a rural area, it may pop up as a local result for any of the towns in that region. This scenario, however, tends to be the exception rather than the rule.

In sum, it is generally wise for local business owners to set the goal of earning local pack rankings for searches related to their city of location, and organic rankings for any other geographic terms they feel are important.

3. Consistency of structured citations

A citation is any web-based mention of your company’s partial or complete name, address, and phone number (NAP). A “structured citation” refers to a listing of your business in an online local business directory such as YP.com, HotFrog, or Best of the Web.

Inconsistent citations might involve:

  • A difference in the business name (i.e. Smile Dentistry vs. Smile Dental Clinic)
  • A wrong street address, a typo in street address numbers, or a missing suite number
  • A wrong or different phone number, a toll free or call tracking number
  • A different or wrong website URL

Citation inconsistencies may arise from simple carelessness during the citation-building process and these mistakes may then be duplicated across the local search ecosystem. Inconsistencies also commonly arise if a business has moved at any time in the past decade or so. Apart from causing confusion for humans, these discrepancies hinder Google’s ability to trust the data they have gathered from around the web about a given business. A lack of trust on Google’s part can spell ranking difficulties for the business.

Here is an illustration of a randomly-chosen dental practice in Sacramento, California which recently moved. The new location of the practice is on Riverside Blvd., but a search in Google reveals that many structured citations for the business still list its old location on Freeport Blvd. As can be seen in the Google+ Local area of the results, the business currently has two listings that reflect this inconsistency, meaning that their authority is being split up instead of consolidated into one correct listing.

If you have to move locations, it’s a given that you’ll need to put in some hours editing your old citations so that they reflect your new address. You’ll see this being referred to as “citation cleanup.” However, many businesses that haven’t moved will discover that they have inconsistent NAP data out there on the web, too.

An easy way to begin searching for this is to simply type your business name into Google’s main search engine and see what comes up. Go through the results by hand and make sure that each part of your NAP is identical across all listings of your business. Edit where necessary.

4. Quality/authority of structured citations

It’s just good horse sense that having your business listed on high-quality websites is going to help you more than being listed on sites of low quality. As a rule of thumb, businesses should initially concentrate on getting listed on a handful of really authoritative local business indexes and directories. Use the tool at GetListed.org to be sure that you have a listing in the dozen or so basic, authoritative directories highlighted there.

Once you have all your ducks in a row with these basic citations, you want to continue down the citation building path to further enhance your company’s visibility and authority. Perform searches for category terms, service terms, and geographic terms to see what comes up in the search engine results. The websites that come up may be places you would like to list your business, if possible.

There is no standard process for judging the quality of a citation source. Metrics you might consider could include domain authority, domain age, link profile quality, and even simpler quality signals such as whether the website looks fresh or neglected. Darren Shaw of Whitespark has written a good blog post entitled “How to Identify Quality Citation Sources“. If you are in a competitive market, you may need to build numerous citations to compete and may find that using a paid tool like Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder makes your work both easier and more effective.

5. HTML NAP matching place page NAP

Google will be looking at the website page you’ve linked to from your Google Places/Google+ Local page to cross reference the name, address and phone number of your business. If all elements match, as shown in this screenshot, you’re good to go:

However, if there is a discrepancy in the NAP you have on your +Local page and the NAP on the website page your +Local page links to, then Google will become “confused” about the data they have about your business. Small discrepancies like Ste. vs Suite or Hwy. vs Highway do not matter. Reference Point 3 in this guide for a list of discrepancies that do matter. Your task is to ensure that your NAP is cohesive in both places.

There is a specific scenario in which Google may not be able to cross reference the complete NAP in the +Local Page dashboard with the NAP published on a website. This relates to home-based businesses which, for reasons of privacy, do not publish their street address on their website. It is speculated that this decision may put the business at some disadvantage, given what an authoritative source the website is, but to date, I am unaware of any in-depth studies that have been conducted surrounding this interesting topic.

One might guess that if there are five home-based seamstresses in a town and only one of them publishes her home address on her website, she might have an edge over the other four, because Google is able to confirm that the Google+ Local page dashboard address matches the one found on the website. This is a subject that is deserved of further study!

6. Quantity of structured citations

Again, a structured citation is a listing of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on an online local business directory. While the quality of these structured citations counts most, quantity is definitely important, too.

Each unique local business owner will find he needs to build a different number of citations in order to be competitive. Typically, the more competitive your market is, the more citations you will need to build.

A simple way to find new structured citations for your business is to type your business category terms into Google’s main search engine to see what comes up. For example, a Boston-based search for “doctors” highlights these two directories where it may be smart for any doctor to get listed.

For a more sophisticated approach, you might use a tool like Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder (Moz members get a 20% discount!) which will not only help you find new citations to build, but will also keep track of the numeric quantity of citations you have earned:

For businesses in less competitive markets, an initial session of citation building followed up by a very modest, occasional effort to build new citations may be all that’s needed to become dominant in the search engine results. If you’re in a tough market, however, ongoing citation building will likely need to be an integral part of your local search marketing strategy.

7. Domain authority of website

At present, the overall strength of a local business’ website plays a major role in how it ranks both locally and organically. Simply stated, “Domain Authority” is a metric used to predict how well a website may perform in search results compared to other websites. Moz offers a Domain Authority toolbar called the MozBar that makes it easy to see the DA of any website in the search engine results. See the bottom of this screenshot, below:

There are many factors that make up the domain authority of a website. Some of these include the age of a website and the number and quality of links pointing to it. For a great explanation of DA, read this blog post by Matt Peters.

In general, every local business will want to publish the strongest possible website. This means having a user-friendly, optimized site with excellent content that earns links and social mentions over time. You will always be working to build your domain authority, and the higher it is, the better your chances of ranking well for your most important terms.

8. Individually owner-verified local Plus page

Creating your Google+ Local page for your local business is your first step to being included in Google’s index. Your second step is to verify your ownership of the listing. These days, this typically involves receiving a postcard/letter from Google containing a pin number which you must enter in order to complete verification.

Avoid letting anyone else act as a go-between for your company, putting your Google+ Local page into some master Google account of their own. It’s fine to have a Local SEO help you with the steps of verification, but this should be done with your own Google account and not the account of any third party. You need to be in direct control of your Google+ Local page, and while you will find unverified listings managing to rank in some local packs, it is always wiser for any local business owner to take the time to verify his or her listing. It’s easy to do!

9. City, state in Places landing page title

Your Google+ Local page should link to a page on your website. This page on your site will have an element in its code called a “Title Tag.” This is typically located in the <head> section of the code and the words contained in it send a very important signal to both search engine bots and human users regarding the topic of the page in question. The title tag of a page typically displays in the upper left hand corner of your browser window:

In the above screenshot, you can see that the title tag of the page contains both the city and state name. Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 cites the inclusion of these geographic terms as being especially important on the landing page to which your Google+ Local page links. For many local businesses, the landing page will simply be the homepage of the website. However, for multi-location or multi-practitioner business models, specific landing pages may have been developed on the website to reflect this diversity, and the Google+ Local pages created for these locations or practitioners will often link to these landing pages instead of the homepage.

By including your city and state names in your landing page title tag, you will be letting both search engine bots and human visitors know that your business is local to a specific geographic locale.

10. Proximity of address to centroid

Traditionally, the centroid in Local Search has been defined as the city center identified by Google in its Maps product. You can go to maps.google.com, type in a city and state and get a result that looks like this, with Google putting a red pin on the presumed city centroid:

However, expert Local SEO Mike Blumenthal has recently pointed out that the centroid can change position relative to different industries and may often have nothing to do with the the designated center of a city. In other words, Google can decide that the center of business for auto dealers is different than the center of business for chiropractors. This is a somewhat complex topic and I recommend you read Linda Buquet’s forum thread, Google+ Local Centroid – Not City Center! to see illustrations of this concept of the shifting center of business.

Proximity of address to centroid is one of those factors over which your business will have little control. Some businesses located outside this centroid/center of business radius may discover that they are at a disadvantage in comparison to competitors who are within the radius. Short of moving to a new location, (not a realistic suggestion) your proximity to Google’s designated center of business for your industry isn’t something you can change.

11. Quality/authority of inbound links to domain

Because organic signals play a big part in local rankings, earning high quality links from authoritative sources will help your business to improve its visibility in the search engine results. A tool like the Open Site Explorer can help you to begin understanding both the number and quality of links currently pointing to your website:

For a local business, high quality, authoritative links may come from a variety of places, including local and national newspapers, local business indexes, high profile bloggers and professional industry associations.

These days, strategies surrounding the acquisition of links have evolved from link building (the process of actively seeking web pages on which links can be placed) to link earning (the process of generating links without having to build or request them due to some outstanding aspect of the website).

Local businesses can both build links, as in the case of having their domain linked to from their local business listings, and earn links via forms of marketing like content development and social sharing. The more authoritative the sources that link to your website, the better your chances of gaining visibility for your important search terms.

12. Quantity of native Google Places reviews (w/text)

This is a simple one! It is currently felt that the number of reviews your business earns on its Google+ Local page influences rank more than reviews you might earn on other review platforms. You can easily see how many reviews you have by clicking either on the “reviews” link on your Google+ Local link in the main search engine results, or by visiting your + Local page directly. You’ll see something that looks like this:

No local business needs to earn a ton of Google-based reviews at once. In fact, if you earn reviews at too great a velocity, you may find that some of them get filtered out. Rather, best practices for this revolve around slowly acquiring positive reviews from happy customers, one by one, over time. You want to earn more reviews than your direct competitors have, but you don’t need 10 times as many reviews to see the benefits. In fact, if you’ve got many more reviews that your competitors, it may look suspicious to Google and human users.

Google allows you to ask for reviews, but not to offer money or incentives in exchange for explicitly-required positive reviews. Reviews must come directly from your customers’ Google accounts. Never hire a third party marketer to pose as a customer and post fake reviews or post reviews on behalf of real customers. Create an internal process in your company for requesting reviews either at the time of service or shortly thereafter. Remember, a slow, steady acquisition of reviews is the goal here, so that you are gradually building a great online reputation, over time.

You will note that this ranking factor relates to the quantity of Google Places reviews rather than the quality or rating of them. At this point in the evolution of Local Search, sheer numbers seem to matter most.

13. Product/service keyword in business title

The business title of your business is its legal name or DBA. It is believed that having the name of a core product or service in your business name may give you some advantage over competitors who lack this. Here’s an example of some auto body shops in Boston with the full or partial keyword phase “auto body” in their business names:

If your business name currently doesn’t contain a product or service term, don’t take a wrong turn by simply adding keywords to the business title field on your Google+ Local page or other citations. This is not allowed!

Ostensibly, you could take the legal steps to change your business name so that it includes a keyword phrase, but be advised that if you do, you will be signing up for a mountain of work editing all web-based references to your old name, in addition to offline re-branding in your signage and marketing. Often, it is simply more realistic to concentrate on other promotional efforts. However, if you are starting a new business, it will be good to take note of this bias on Google’s part and consider including your core product/service term in the naming of your company.

14. Quantity of citations from locally relevant domains

Having your business NAP (name, address, phone number) mentioned on a website that relates specifically to your geographic community acts as a locally-relevant citation. This type of citation reinforces Google’s trust in your relevance to your locale. Here’s an example of a locally-relevant citation for an accounting firm, listed on the Livermore, California Chamber of Commerce website:

Apart from Chamber of Commerce websites, other locally-relevant domains on which you might earn citations could include local news sites, local professional association sites and local blogs that publish content about businesses or happenings in your community.

Remember, a citation does not necessarily have to link to your website, but that’s always nice, too!

15. Proximity of physical location to the point of search (searcher-business distance)

For many searches, it is no longer necessary to include a geographic term in your search in order to be shown local results. If Google feels that your search term has a local intent, they will automatically detect your physical location and show you local results. For example, a user located in Laramie, Wyoming can simply search for “wood stoves” in order to be shown a local pack of results containing businesses near him.

This phenomenon of proximity demonstrates Google’s bias towards businesses with a physical location within a specific geographic area. If your business is physically near to the searcher, your chances are good of showing up in the local results, but if it’s too far away, it is unlikely to be included in the results.

For Google Maps app users looking for local businesses on their cell phones, this concept of proximity is especially sensitive. If you run a local auto body shop on the north side of your city, your chances are good that you will be shown to searches who are driving around that part of town, but if you are on the south side, there is a chance you won’t appear as a result for that specific searcher at that time. He’d need to drive or walk closer to you to see you as a result.

Obviously, local business owners have no control over where a particular searcher is physically located at the time he performs a search, but it’s important to understand that the closer a searcher is to you, the better your chances of being shown as a result for his search.

16. Quantity of citations from industry-relevant domains

Just as it can be helpful to earn to have your name, address and phone number listed on locally-relevant websites, being included on industry-relevant sites can improve your authority and rankings, too.

An industry-relevant website can be defined as one that is widely recognized to be authoritative within a particularly category of industry, be that automobiles, hospitality or health care. GetListed.org partnered with Whitespark.ca to create a great data set highlighting The Best U.S. Citation Sources By Category. Here’s an example of the data you’ll find on this page:

Definitely check that resource out if you are looking for citation sources that are relevant to your industry. You can also perform manual searches for your industry category and create a list of the authoritative websites that come up most frequently for your terms. Once you have created this list, you can visit each of the sites to see if they allow local businesses to be listed in a directory-type feature, or if there are other opportunities for earning a citation, such as guest blogging.

17. Local area code on local Plus page

Using your local area code phone number as your primary phone number on your Google+ Local page is considered a best practice. The area code of the phone number should match the area code/codes traditionally associated with your city of location. This may seem obvious, but the local search engine results reveal that some businesses take a wrong turn here and publish a toll free number, instead. Alternatively, they might publish a cell phone number or call tracking number with a different area code.

Here is a screenshot of a business which has done this correctly, publishing a 505 area code phone number consistent with the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico:

Google allows you to enter a secondary number (such as a toll free number) when creating your listing. This is especially important for businesses like hotels who receive calls from all over the world and want their guests to be able to make a charge-free phone call to book a room. Just be sure that, when you create your listing, you are putting the local area code number in the primary number field.

18. City, state in most/all website title tags

As referenced in point #9 of this guide, the title tag is an extremely important element of any website page. Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 posits that inclusion of your city/state name in most or all of your title tags can have a positive impact on how your local business ranks. Here’s a screenshot from Open Site Explorer showing how these geo terms have been included in many of the title tags for a carpet cleaning company in Livermore, California:

While it isn’t necessary to include your city/state in every single title tag of your website, it makes sense to include it on major pages such as the home page, contact page, service description pages and bio pages. You want to send the clearest possible signals to search engine bots and human users that you are a local business and the title tag really helps transmit that message.

19. Quantity of third-party traditional reviews

In point #12 of this guide, we discussed the importance of earning customer reviews on your Google+ Local page. Beyond this, there are many third-party platforms on which it can be useful to get reviews. In ranking your local business, Google takes into account the quantity of reviews you have earned around the web. Take a look at how the famed New Orleans restaurant, Antoine’s, is the recipient of reviews on a variety of sites:

How do we know that Google takes this third party data into account? For one thing, they link out to third party review sites right on the Google+ Local page:

In the above screenshot, you can immediately see that Google is aware that reviews exist for Antoine’s Restaurant at UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor and Switchboard. Consider this a hint!

When trying to decide where it would be best for your local business to win reviews, it can help to look at the +Local pages of your direct competitors to see which third party platforms, if any, are being highlighted, as in the above screenshot.

You should also research which review sites appear to be most active in your locale. For example, in California, Yelp is an incredibly active website, but it may be less so in other parts of the country. Your state or city may even have locally-relevant review sites that your community is using. The idea is to get your business profiled anywhere that your potential customers might leave a review so that you are building a broad, web-based portfolio of positive reviews over time.

20. Page authority of Places landing page URL

Similar to the concept of Domain Authority of a whole website described in point #7 of this guide, this ranking factor relates to the authority of the specific website page linked to from your Google+Local page. For many companies, this will simply be the homepage of the website, but for businesses with multiple locations or practitioners, other pages on the website may have been designated as the landing pages. You can get a sense of your landing page’s Page Authority using www.opensiteexplorer.org.

Open Site Explorer uses Page Authority to predict a specific page’s ability to rank well, based on an algorithmic combination of link metrics, MozRank, MozTrust and other factors. For a detailed explanation of this concept, read What Is Page Authority. Because of the influence organic factors have on local rankings, the higher your landing page’s Page Authority, the better your chances of becoming dominant in the local search results.

Whew, you made it!

Now you’re off to a good start! You understand the top twenty most important local search ranking factors. Your next task is to move on to the rest of the eighty-three foundational factors, and from there to the competitive difference maker factors and then the negative factors. I consider the study of Local Search Ranking Factors to be essential and exciting homework for every Local SEO and local business owner on the planet. Taking the time to understand the concepts represented by each factor can spell success for any local business you own or market.

The smartest Local SEOs I know are the ones who study hardest. I’m here to help you in the Moz Q&A Forum if you hit a stumbling block. In the meantime, let me wish you good luck in the learning process!


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The 2013 #MozCon Video Bundle is Live!

Posted by EricaMcGillivray

The 2013 MozCon Video Bundle is finally here. Yes, finally! We apologize for the delay, but hope you’re still excited. MozCon 2013 attendees: You should’ve gotten an email with your special code for your video access, which was included with your ticket price (if you didn’t, let us know at community@moz.com).

MozCon 2013 was spectacular! This year, we moved our conference to its new home at the Washington State Convention Center, and we were able to host 1,200 people, including Moz staff and other people helping out. This year saw a monumental 35 speakers! That’s a lot of inbound marketing knowledge.

Dharmesh Shah at MozCon 2013

What MozCon goers said about MozCon’s content

Let’s get down to business. Why should you purchase the MozCon videos? We always try to give you plenty of takeaways to inspire and kick off your next brilliant marketing move. Here’s what MozCon 2013 attendees said about our speakers’ content:

Did you find the MozCon presentations to be advanced enough for you? 73.2% said Yes.

What percentage of the presentations did you find interesting? 55.8% said 80% or more and 36.9% said 50% or more.

All the details on the video bundle

Our videos show both the presenter and their deck, and we include a download of the slide deck so you can flip through it at your leisure. Or just click on those important links. You can stream or download them directly to enjoy on your desktop, laptop, iPad, tablet, Surface, Android phone, iPhone, Windows phone, and those rare Andromeda 4000s, which only work on Mars.

Our dream is that you keep pausing every single talk in order to send emails and IMs filled with new ideas to your team or clients. There are 37 videos—35 speakers + a q&a session + a special Rand Fishkin introduction—to level-up your skills.

For $299 Moz Analytics subscribers ($399 non-subscribers) get instant access to:

  • 37 videos (over 19 hours) from MozCon 2013
  • Stream or download the videos to your computer, iPhone, or Android device
  • Downloadable slide decks of presentations

Buy the 2013 MozCon Video Bundle

Non-subscribers, sign up for a free 30-day Moz Analytics trial and save.

A full-length talk for free!

Last year, we gave away Wil Reynolds’ talk, and this year, we’re continuing in the tradition of giving you a taste of one of the best MozCon talks. The New Yorker‘s Kyle Rush talks about the conversion-rate optimization he did as part of the one of the most famous internet campaigns to-date, Obama for America.

MozCon 2013 free video – Kyle Rush – Win Through Optimization and Testing

Buy the 2013 MozCon Video Bundle

If that doesn’t convince you that these MozCon videos are all that jazz, here’s a really cute kitten hanging with adorable ducks. Or if you’re dance-party excited, we have a super early-bird deal on MozCon 2014 tickets.


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5 Strategic Steps to Big Content

Posted by MackenzieFogelson

Content is an incredibly powerful integrated marketing tool. Among other things, content can:

  • cultivate relationships
  • increase brand trust and credibility
  • build links and domain authority
  • build your audience and your reach
  • grow your community
  • convert the right customers

If you’re using content to accomplish these types of goals for your business, you’re on the right track. But keep in mind that everything you write should serve a higher purpose. It’s not about creating content just to check it off your list of things to do for your marketing. It’s about using content to make a difference for your business.

Stepping into big content

Until recently, all of the content we had created for our brand at Mack Web Solutions had been blog posts, infographics, and slide decks. A few weeks ago we released the biggest piece of content we’d ever written: a 147 page guide on how to build online communities.

What follows is an account of the five major steps we took to release this sucker, what we learned, and the higher purpose this big content has served in our company.

My intention with this post is not to promote our guide. Rather, it’s to document the strategic stages we executed on our first path to big content in hopes of inspiring and informing your own similar journeys.

To date, we’ve had nearly 1,900 downloads and many other indicators of success. It has been quite the effort to pull all of this together. Here’s the strategic tips I’d like to share and a little about how the story goes.

Strategic big content step #1:
Figure out the who


If you’re thinking about investing in big content, definitely figure out the why, but also the who. We wanted our guide to be an accurate representation of the effort required to actually build a community.

We knew that at 147 pages not everyone was going to be willing to put in the work to read it. And that’s OK. We built it for the people who are. They’re the ones who we knew would put it to use.

And so it began

When I was at MozCon 2012, I had breakfast with Jon Henshaw, the co-founder of Raven Tools. I told Jon I was interested in speaking at conferences and wondered how I would begin to build a name for myself and my company in the industry. Jon’s advice was to build a tool and give it away for free.

It took several months before I had any even remotely clever idea that could be developed into a useful tool. I heard the word “tool” and started thinking way too literally. I was trying to come up with an SEO-type tool. Something that would need to be programmed and developed like an app or a plugin. Although that may come in another stage in our company, that just wasn’t going to work with our existing resources. Our tool needed to be something that naturally resonated with what we did, and it also needed to be something we were really passionate about, because we would be spending the next eight months working on it.

Once I thought about it that way, it was kind of a lightbulb moment. The one thing we both do and love the most is building online communities. What better way to help other people and businesses than to develop a “tool” that would help them build their communities?

As I discussed the idea with the team, we knew that if we wanted this tool to really work, that we had to follow the advice we had been giving businesses all along: It couldn’t be about us and what we wanted; it needed to be about our community and what they needed.

Going for it


We decided to redefine “tool” as “guide” and write one as our first piece of big content because:

  1. We wanted to fill a need

    Before we decided to create a community building guide, we did some research and discovered there wasn’t another resource like it. What we were planning on building would add unique value to the community building knowledge that was already out there. Plus, with the pace at which the SEO industry evolves, we knew it would be something that would serve SEOs, marketers, agencies, and businesses who were trying to keep up with the evolution and think beyond keywords and Google’s algorithms.

  2. We wanted to drive a movement

    Not only did we want to begin establishing our company as a leader in the industry, but we wanted to begin changing the way companies look at and value marketing. 
Our philosophy is that marketing efforts most certainly can accomplish company-wide goals and bring in revenue. But they can also change the way you run your business and engage with and cultivate a community of lifelong customers. We thought this guide would be a baby step in that direction.

  3. We wanted to provide an experience
    
Not only did we want to have a strong resource that would assist us in moving potential clients further down the funnel, but we also wanted this resource to be something that indirectly told the story of what it’s like to work with us. We wanted this guide to make a statement about our expertise, personality, quality of product, drive, level of service, and commitment to helping businesses reach their goals.

So who is your who? If you’re thinking about big content, whom do you really want to get your message in front of? Whom do you really want to connect with? What are your values and philosophies and how can you communicate that in your big content so that you’re attracting the right audience with your efforts?

Strategic big content step #2:
Focus on relationships

I’d definitely recommend using LaunchRock in your pre-planning efforts for big content, but even more important would be to build relationships. Not just for the sake of getting more people engaged with your big content, but to make some valuable friends.

I didn’t realize the power of this until the guide had launched.

The whole time we were building the guide, we were focusing on growing the email list via LaunchRock. Every blog post we wrote, every conference I spoke at, every chance we had we were asking people to go sign up for our guide. And in the end, we had 343 people who chose to be on that list. That’s really great for our first go at this, and for the size of our community, but we certainly were hoping for a bigger splash.

What made the most difference in the reach of the guide wasn’t necessarily the people on the email list. It was the people we had built relationships with during the 8 months leading up to its launch. So, instead of 343 people downloading the guide in the first week of the launch, we had more than 1,200.

It was really humbling to watch the effect of relationships on social media. The amplification of your efforts can be pretty remarkable if you’ve made the effort to actually care about people and be genuinely interested in what they’re doing (rather than always working on furthering your own cause). There’s no scientific way we can quantify this, but I know it’s made an enormous difference in the guide’s success.

Yes or no


So when we had decided on a guide, we took Distilled’s lead on their pre-outreach efforts with DistilledU and built a LaunchRock page. Essentially, the purpose of LaunchRock is to gauge interest, but also to build an email list that becomes your first marketing audience once your product is finished. For this project, the team decided that if we received 100 signups it would be worth building.

Within the first few weeks, we hit our mark, so it was a go. We then had eight months to build the guide and continue building that list. During the first six months we didn’t do a whole lot to build our list other than referring to the guide indirectly in blog posts, talking about it on social media, and telling people about it at conferences.

What really gave us the boost was our efforts in the final two months leading up to the launch and then once the guide was actually here.

It takes a village

Initially we had set a soft deadline for completion of the guide for the end of summer or early fall. After we put the LaunchRock page up, we created an outline and general schedule for completion, but then let it sit untouched for a couple months. It became pretty clear in the beginning that if we never set a hard deadline, this thing would never see the light of day. 

So in June when we were working through strategic operations and setting company-wide goals, we created a Mack Web Branding initiative and set a hard date for launch on October 15. Setting this goal helped us to get a big picture strategy down, since there was a lot more to do than simply write the guide.

We had a team of six to put this whole thing together, but we also had client work to take care of and a company to grow. So we assigned chunks of the project to each person on the team in order to start making some progress.

The writing chunk


We knew that Courtney (the voice of our brand and our lead content strategist) would do the majority of the writing and compile the first draft of the guide. But we also knew that I had to supply her with the actual bones. So Courtney and I worked together on an outline and agreed to a collaboration schedule.

Courtney lives in Chicago so we made arrangements to have our meetings and communication via email, chat, and G+ hangouts. For the first six months, Courtney and I would check in every few weeks on progress. It really wasn’t until the last 60 days that we would be meeting daily in order to ensure we were going to make our deadline.

(Sounds silly, but we also gave the guide a nickname. You’ll have to read it to get the full story, but when the project started, we didn’t have a title and we all kept calling it different things. So Courtney came up with the pet name, deemed him a llama, and from then on we affectionately referred to the guide as Arthur).

The design chunk

Natalie, our designer, would take on the design portion of the guide. Because Nat wouldn’t be able to design the actual meat of the guide until it was written, she worked on cover pages, section dividers, and promotional art for LaunchRock, social, email marketing, and the website.

The (pre and post) promotion chunk

The rest of the team was assigned to pre- and post-launch promotional stuff, including the re-messaging and re-designing of our website. Things like blog posts, social, video, and email marketing were scheduled and assigned to the team.

There’s no way that any of our big content efforts would have come together if we didn’t have the entire team working together to make it happen. We also never would have made as much of an impact, so soon after its launch, had we not built credibility with friends in the industry. In the end, it’s the latter that means more and will help carry a company further than one piece of big content.

Strategic big content step #3:
Get to that tiny little resting place between done and perfect

I won’t deny that I’m a bit of an over-achieving perfectionist and I certainly drive hard. I really have to work on exercising the just ship it mentality that many companies embrace. That said, there definitely is something to be said about putting in the extra effort to do what’s right for the customer.

We certainly could have left the guide in its original, first-draft, narrative form. And I’m sure people would have loved it all the same. But there would have been a lot more people who didn’t bother to read it.

The extra time we spent on structure, formatting, and design really helped us to improve the user experience and show our readers that they mattered to us. We didn’t want the guide to be stuck on a hard drive and forgotten. We wanted it to be used, applied, iterated, and re-worked. And we knew that wasn’t going to happen in its original state.

This was definitely one of those times where I’m glad we didn’t just ship it. I’m proud of the team for thinking about what would make it better for our readers and making the decision to put in the extra work to make it a better experience.

Addressing hurdles

After we had all the pieces assigned to the team, I worked with Courtney to get her all the bones of the guide. Because I had already written and spoken a great deal about building community on the Moz blog and at conferences, Courtney was able to take those bits and match it to the outline. After she wrote each chapter, I would review and provide feedback. Sounds like a brilliant plan, but as we got closer to our deadline, we ran into some problems.

Stuff was evolving

As Courtney was putting together the first draft of the guide, we were learning a lot as a company. So even though we were technically on schedule with the parts that Courtney had written, by the time I had reviewed the most important part of the guide (the how), it was missing some pretty important pieces that I hadn’t yet written or spoken about. Things that we had discovered to be integral to community building and had learned from experimentation with our company and with our clients.

We didn’t want to release a guide that was outdated as soon as it hit the streets, so just one month before the guide was to launch, we went back to the drawing board in a couple places and did what it took to get those more current pieces incorporated into the guide.

We figured this was going to set us back a bit, but not as much as the structural issues we discovered just weeks before launch.

The first draft was a narrative, not a guide

As Courtney and I worked back and forth with the first draft of the guide, we were really focused on getting the pieces in place which meant we hadn’t paid much attention to the actual shape of the guide and how it would read.

When the team finally read the finished first draft, we all agreed that Courtney had done an amazing job of putting the Mack Web voice to the information in the guide. The problem was that the whole thing read as a narrative instead of a guide. All of the knowledge and pieces were there, but it lacked the actual structure that makes the “how-to” of a guide. Essentially there was no consistent format that would make it easy for the reader to digest and actually apply the information.

At this point, we were 13 days away from launch. I talked with the team and we all agreed that we needed to make the necessary changes to provide a better UX. But in order to not completely re-write the entire guide, we decided that I would provide Courtney with a framework that she could apply in retrospect.

Because time was scarce and we were on such a tight turn around, Courtney and I would piggy-back. For days, as soon as she finished a section, I would go in and do any final edits and get the approved draft over to Natalie to style. We’d communicate all of this through chat:

Courtney, Nat, and I didn’t sleep much in the weeks prior to launch. Re-structuring the guide for UX was a huge feat at that stage in the game. I’m really glad we pulled it off and I’m really glad we put in the extra effort. Based on the feedback, I think our readers appreciated it as well.

Taking the extra time to improve your big content (or anything for that matter) so that your user will have a better experience isn’t about perfection. It’s about going the extra step because you know you should. That’s a reflection on how much you care and who you are as a company. And for us, investing that time was really important.

Strategic big content step #4

Know when to take a break

Big content alone takes so much effort. Then you add all the pre and post promotion to it and you have quite the project. Creating this guide has been incredibly rewarding, but it also has put a tremendous amount of stress on our team and our company.

During the final weeks of getting the guide ready, we pushed incredibly hard. Many of us weren’t sleeping or resting as much as we should have. We were working nights and weekends. And although we were all reminded to take breaks, none of us wanted to because we really just wanted to get the thing done.

So once we finally reached the finish line, the team scheduled a day to take a collective break and celebrate. We left the office and hit the trails. It was a well earned and much needed day.

This day was actually kind of a double victory for me personally. It’s really difficult for me not to drive forward all the time. It takes a concerted effort for me to slow down and bask in our accomplishments. I’ve asked the team to be aware of this and they remind me when it’s time to walk away for a bit.

Getting stuff done

We did all kinds of promotional stuff both leading up to and once the guide launched. Clearly our goal with all of our efforts was to build awareness and increase signups (and eventually downloads) to the guide. This is what we accomplished:

  1. We redesigned our website
    
I know, we’re nuts. We were hoping the guide would drive a whole bunch of traffic to our website and our existing website didn’t really say what we actually did. So, we hunkered down and re-designed and re-messaged all at the same time (and barely lived to tell the tale). 

We also redesigned the site so that we could effectively optimize a page on the website for the guide. We took Moz’s lead on how they structured their Beginner’s Guide to SEO so that it would be easy to access and build links to.

    The day the guide launched, we had nearly 1,200 visits to our site.

    And we also had the same amount of traffic driven the day the guide made the Moz Top 10 (at #8).

    Based on the traffic we received, it was well worth our effort to redesign the site alongside the launch of our big content. Just as we built the guide to be a reflection of what our company was all about, we needed the website to mirror our priorities and personality. A disconnect between the product and the shop wouldn’t have left a very good impression. Having our website, blog, social, and the guide completely aligned with design and messaging seems to have made a big difference in its success.

  2. We created some videos and held a hangout

    For the final weeks leading up to launch, we used our blog to release weekly videos that communicated some key community building takeaways.

    It was our first time with this medium, so lucky for us Tyler had some video background, and we also had Wistia guiding us through a great deal of the pre-planning process.

    The videos were quite successful. We got some great engagement for all five of them. They were really fun to make and it really helped to give our audience a new look at who we were.

    In addition to the videos, we also held a Google+ hangout with some of the best community managers in the search marketing industry. 

The video of the recorded hangout received over 3,300 views. G+ alone brought 36 new guide signups. But more than that, we established new relationships with some pretty great innovators in social and community.

    Our pre-launch efforts with videos and the hangout really helped to boost LaunchRock signups. Prior to those efforts we had 245 signups. At launch we had 343.

  3. We told our clients
    
A few days before the launch, we told our existing clients what was going on (both with the website and the guide). It’s easy to forget about the people who are already in the funnel. They might not care so much about the reading the guide itself since they’ve got us doing that work for them, but an accomplishment and milestone like this builds a whole lot of trust.

    

In addition to spreading the news with our existing clients, I also reached out to potential clients that we had been talking with. Sending personal emails sharing the guide actually helped to get meetings scheduled and move some of those leads further down the funnel.

  4. We got into our community

    The day of the launch the entire team worked to answer tweets, emails, and questions. We made a little breakfast party out of it and it was actually kind of fun. We were all extremely happy to have the guide finally finished and in our readers’ hands.

    Throughout the weeks following the launch of the guide, Ayelet (our community manager) would look for people who had completed the guide and sent them a personal note from Arthur.

As you work on your big content, if at all possible, make sure you leave some padding and schedule in some breaks. Look for places where you can lighten your regular work load (I know I spent less time on social media during the month leading up to launch). Look for parts of the project that you can outsource and bring in some outside help. You certainly don’t want to drive your company into the ground just to launch big content. So be thoughtful of the stress it may cause and do what you can to alleviate the pressure.

Strategic big content step #5

Leverage

There are a ton of ways to squeeze more out of the big content you’ve built. Think of it as a product that you can evolve into blog posts, case studies, or maybe even new tools. Asking your audience is the first step in determining the pieces of value that can spin out of your original creation.

Right now, we’re listening to the reception. We’re talking to people and asking them what they really thought. We’re working on getting tangible feedback and real stories of application. These will be the seeds of what we do next.

Finally on the downhill

The week of the launch was the easy part. Of course there was a lot of excitement. It’s in the weeks and months following the launch of big content that really count. Now that we made the effort, how can we squeeze the most value out of what we’ve already done?

So we’ve got some stuff planned. We’re thinking it would be great to put together an HTML version that we would then update (just like Moz updates their SEO beginner’s guide). That’s a whole beast in itself, but we kind of knew that going into it. Generating the HTML version will also allow us to do any further structural work that we want to do for UX but didn’t have time for in the PDF.

We’re also thinking about doing some additional videos that will allow readers to work along with the guide itself. We can then address questions and challenges our readers have and create additional resources that would supplement the guide (and perhaps embed into the HTML version).

We’d also like to get some testimonials and further develop the landing page of the guide itself. We’re hoping that we’ll continue to build all kinds of links to that page, and if we do, it would most certainly be worth updating and adding more value through social proof and other community building resources.

We just want to make sure we get the most out of the investment we’ve made in big content. And that’s what’s so great about it. If you put in the strategic effort, it becomes an asset. It lives as evergreen content that will organically work for you for years to come.

Totally worth the ride

There are a lot of ways in which our big content continues to pay dividends. Hands down it has given us momentum to move forward and has provided quite the learning experience for our company. Our mistakes this time will lessen the pain next time (and perhaps our story will help you avoid the bruises altogether when it’s your turn).

Big content has also been a source of pride for the whole team and in the whole team. Not to mention all the things we’ve already pointed out: brand awareness, reach, trust, credibility, relationships, authority, and links.

But while we’re certainly not complaining about all of these benefits, they’re just side effects.

The real reason we built the guide—the real reason to put the work into big content—is that we wanted to further the mission of our company, which, in our case, is to help companies build better businesses by building their own communities. Lucky for us, our journey through big content has also made a really big difference in our own company

I’m hoping our story will inspire yours. What big content could you build to serve your company’s higher purpose?


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Last Chance! Take the 2013 Industry Survey #ShareYourVoice

Posted by jennita

Holy wow! Over the past two and half weeks we’ve gathered more than 2,500 responses from marketers across the globe for this year’s Moz Industry Survey. We’d like to send a huge THANK YOU to everyone who’s participated so far.

The thing is, we’d love to get at least 3,000 responses to insure we have a good set of data. We’re planning on closing the survey next week though, so if you haven’t taken it yet, please jump in there now (also, you don’t want to miss out on the killer prizes do you?).

#ShareYourVoice

Yes, while it’s super important for you to take the survey, it’s also essential for you to help us get the word out as well. We’d love to get your help by tweeting, plussing, facebooking, and even vineing (yea, I’m just making stuff up now), to remind folks to get in there.

The other day, I had the crazy idea that I would make a vine of me singing, aka “Sharing my voice” and tweet it out with a link to the Industry Survey. I asked a few other folks to jump in as well, and what happened next was pretty amazing!

Pssst! And if you make one, use the #ShareYourVoice hashtag, and I’ll add it to the page:

We’d love your help spreading the word as well. Would you create a video, image, or even just a tweet and get the word out?

Tweet #ShareYourVoice

Sneak Peek

Now, you didn’t think we’d ask you to help out without showing a bit of data now would you? I thought it was interesting to see the salary range of folks who’ve taken the survey so far. Remember though that people across the globe have taken this and this isn’t taking into account that someone making $30-40k in the US is different to someone making the same thing in another country.

Prizes

Don’t forget we’re giving away some great prizes as well! Cyrus laid it all out in the initial post, but here’s the rundown again:

Grand Prize: Attend MozCon 2014 in Seattle
Including flight, hotel, and lunch with an industry expert.

Two First Prizes: iPad 2

Ten Second Prizes: $100 Amazon.com gift cards

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