The Best of 2013: The Top Posts and People on the Moz Blog

Posted by Trevor-Klein

Continuing what has become an annual tradition at Moz, on the last day of 2013 we’re excited to bring you a roundup of the very best of this year’s posts on the Moz Blog and YouMoz.

After asking Roger to work overtime to crunch these numbers, we’ve whittled the posts down to the cream of the crop, and have organized them in several different ways:

1. The top Moz Blog posts by unique pageviews
2. The top YouMoz Blog posts by unique pageviews
3. The top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up
4. The top Moz Blog posts by number of comments
5. The top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains
6. The top comments from our community by number of thumbs up
7. The most active community members by number of comments posted

This year’s data was more difficult to collect, as we migrated to our new domain in May. My eternal gratitude goes to Cyrus Shepard for helping make sure the right numbers were pulled.

Top posts by unique pageviews

One of the quintessential metrics for a piece of content is its number of unique pageviews. Reflecting our audience’s thirst for advanced SEO, content marketing, and data analysis, these posts were winners from the very beginning.

1. 10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations
February 6 – Posted by Miranda Rensch
Communicating visually is one of the most effective ways to explain complex concepts and relationships, both internally with your teammates and externally with your clients. Our very own Product Manager, Miranda Rensch, offers a list of tools you can use to create beautiful visualizations and let your visual communication skills shine!

2. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

3. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

4. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

5. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

6. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

7. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

8. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

9. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

10. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Friday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

Top YouMoz posts by unique pageviews

We saw some real gems come through the YouMoz queue this year. Most of these posts were promoted to the Moz Blog shortly after they were published, as their resonance with the Moz community was readily apparent.

1. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

2. 96 Quick SEO Wins – What Can You Do With an Hour?
January 31 – Posted by kevingibbons
If you want to win at SEO in 2013, you must commit to a solid long-term strategy. However, that’s not to say you can’t build small wins into your long-term strategy to strengthen it along the way. Here are 96 quick wins you can implement in an hour or less to see tremendous results.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging
January 21 – Posted by Pratik.Dholakiya
With “content marketing” being the indisputable SEO buzzword of 2012, we can expect 2013 to see an onslaught of marketers trying to build links with guest posts. The growth in this market will cause some sites to lower their guest posting standards, others to raise them, and still more to stop accepting them altogether. We’re going to help you combat this by sharing how we got posts up on ProBlogger and Search Engine Journal, and by introducing you to our strategy for success with our clients.

4. 33 Link Building Questions Answered
April 4 – Posted by Rhea Drysdale
When it comes to link building idea generation, the sky’s the limit! In today’s post, Rhea Drysdale offers her tips for best practices and a philosophical approach to link building that will help bring your ideas to life.

5. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

6. 5 Lessons Learned from 100,000 Usability Studies
August 28 – Posted by Phil Sharp
As helpful as analytics can be, they simply can’t give as complete a picture as usability studies. This post walks through five of the most important lessons we’ve learned after performing hundreds of thousands of those studies.

7. How to Build Links to Your Blog – A Case Study
June 4 – Posted by MatthewBarby
After a month or so of development, my site was finally ready and I wanted to start thinking about how to get some traffic going on the website. Whilst paid advertising and social media were a huge part of the strategy, I knew that appearing in the search engines for a wide selection of long-tail phrases was going to be instrumental to the blog’s success. This is when I began developing my link building strategy and, after trialing out some very successful approaches, I’ve decided to now share my link building tactics with you all.

8. How to Build a Great Online Fashion Brand – 34 Things that Really Amazing Fashion Retailers Do
May 30 – Posted by ILoveFashionRetail.com
Despite the title, we believe this article can also benefit and inspire retailers in industries outside fashion and help them find their way to success in online retail business in this new social commerce environment. The Online Fashion Retail Industry, particularly at the luxury end, seems to be doing well. Over the past few years, lot of money has been invested into fashion retail businesses. Valuations of these companies might seem inflated, but these companies are growing fast with the help of clear revenue stream and a value proposition that’s beyond price advantage. But while some companies in Fashion technology are successfully raising more money and growing, there is another segment that’s struggling to survive. These businesses are stalling because of their ability to adopt to the shift in the media consumption behavior of the consumer.

9. How To Blog Successfully About Anything
January 9 – Posted by TannerC
In order to create a successful blog, you must be passionately curious about the topic you’re covering. Learn how to turn even the most uninteresting blog post topics into goldmines with these tips for successful bloggers.

10. Semantic Web and Link Building without Links > The Future for SEO?
January 10 – Posted by simonpenson
Rand’s recent WBF about co-occurrence was a real wake up call for those still transfixed with link building practices of old. While anchor text based links may still have some effect, there is little arguing the fact that the factor’s importance is dwindling. In its place are things like social signals, link age, and, most importantly, a growing reliance on relevancy and how that is deciphered.

Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up

While something of a controversial metric, there’s nothing more satisfying for an author (or, I admit, for a publisher!) than seeing a bunch of thumbs up. These posts went far beyond satisfying, though, garnering jaw-dropping numbers of thumbs up.

1. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

2. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

3. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

4. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

5. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

6. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

7. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

8. From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency
September 19 – Posted by NiftyMarketing
This post is a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing. My hope is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn’t.

9. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

10. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments

Some posts, whether due to truly inspired content or a touch of controversy (sometimes a little of both), generate significantly more discussion in the comments than others. Many of these have comment sections that dwarf the original post! We expected our announcement of the shift from SEOmoz to Moz would drum up some conversation, but we were interested to take a look at the rest of this list.

1. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

2. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging
January 21 – Posted by Pratik.Dholakiya
With “content marketingâ€� being the indisputable SEO buzzword of 2012, we can expect 2013 to see an onslaught of marketers trying to build links with guest posts. The growth in this market will cause some sites to lower their guest posting standards, others to raise them, and still more to stop accepting them altogether. We’re going to help you combat this by sharing how we got posts up on ProBlogger and Search Engine Journal, and by introducing you to our strategy for success with our clients.

4. Why We Can’t Just Be SEOs Anymore – Whiteboard Friday
May 2 – Posted by randfish
There’s a movement happening in our industry where many SEOs are changing their titles and practices to “inbound marketing.” Where did this shift originate, and how is it shaping our industry at large? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares his thoughts on why we can’t just be SEOs anymore if we’re aiming for the bigger picture.

5. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

6. Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal
October 14 – Posted by PinpointDesigns
A few months back, I wrote an article on Moz all about a penalty our web agency received for unnatural links pointing to our website. At first, this was a bit of a shock to the system, but since then, we’ve learned so much about Google’s webmaster guidelines and we’ve helped lots of companies get their businesses back on track and remove manual penalties associated with their websites.

7. From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency
September 19 – Posted by NiftyMarketing
This post is a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing. My hope is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn’t.

8. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

9. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

10. Why Google Analytics Tagging Matters – Whiteboard Friday
March 15 – Posted by RachaelGerson
In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rachael Gerson sheds some light on “dark social” and explains why tagging in Google Analytics improves the accuracy of your referrals. Take credit for the work that you’re doing, and tag your links!

Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains

It just wouldn’t seem right to use unique pageviews, thumbs, and comments to judge an SEO-focused blog without throwing in linking root domains as well. Using data from Open Site Explorer, here are the 10 posts that garnered the most attention from unique domains across the web.

1. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

2. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

3. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

4. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

5. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

6. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

7. How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Ranking
August 1 – Posted by Zoompf
Google has long stated website performance will impact search ranking, but what exactly does this mean? In this article, Zoompf researches over 40 different speed metrics to determine the most impactful performance changes you can make to your website to improve search ranking.

8. 10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations
February 6 – Posted by Miranda.Rensch
Communicating visually is one of the most effective ways to explain complex concepts and relationships, both internally with your teammates and externally with your clients. Our very own Product Manager, Miranda Rensch, offers a list of tools you can use to create beautiful visualizations and let your visual communication skills shine!

9. The SEO of Responsive Web Design
January 28 – Posted by Kristina Kledzik
Will Critchlow announced back in November that Distilled’s blog was updated with a new responsive design, but it occurred to me recently that we never went into the specifics of why responsive web design is so great. It’s been a hot topic in online marketing for the past few months, but is it really going to become an industry standard? Short answer: yep.

10. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

Top comments by number of thumbs up

We’re always impressed by the discussions we see in the comments below blog posts. In addition to the great many insightful points that add to what the authors say, one of our favorite parts is the support our community members show for one another. Here are the most thumbed-up comments from 2013.

1. Stephan_Boehringer | September 24
When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday

2. gfiorelli1 | July 19
Heart to Heart About Link Building – Whiteboard Friday

3. MarkTraphagen | August 20
Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings

4. jcolman | May 29
Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!

5. randfish | August 29
The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0

6. Dr-Pete | April 15
The Difference Between Penguin and an Unnatural Links Penalty (and some info on Panda too)

7. Bill Sebald | July 16
9 Experts and a Summary: What Makes an Ideal SEO Employee?

8. KeriMorgret | February 7
Going Beyond Moz Metrics to Answer: “Why is this Site Outranking Me?”

9. evolvingSEO | February 12
Stop Clicking Here! 7 Superior SEO Alternatives to Generic Links

10. KeriMorgret | March 8
6 Ways to Use Fresh Links & Mentions to Improve Your Marketing Efforts – Whiteboard Friday

Most active users by number of comments

While quality certainly trumps quantity in most cases, we’re continuously impressed by the ability of our community members to cover both bases. On average, the folks on this list (which intentionally omits our own staff and associates) have left a comment on every second or third post we’ve published, and we couldn’t appreciate their contributions more.

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