Quot - Arizona SEO | Phoenix SEO

It’s Only A Clique If You’re Not In It

On January 26, 2010, In SEO, by Dr. Pete

This post started as a reaction to accusations in the SEO industry that Top X lists, awards, etc. are only going to people’s friends. As I was writing it over what ended up being 2 weeks, I realized just how broad this issue really is, from personal to professional to political. I hope you’ll indulge me as I try to do justice to a topic that goes well beyond SEO.

We all know how it feels to be on the outside looking in. You start out feeling awkward and a little envious, but slowly it turns into something worse – depression, resentment, even rage. Eventually, we find a group to belong to, and the tables turn. No matter how often we were excluded (and maybe because of it), we eventually start to exclude others. It’s a vicious, if all too human, cycle, and it extends to every corner of our social interactions.

My Friends Are The Best

Just ask them; I’m sure they’ll agree. Do we prefer our friends? Do we give them the best opportunities and accolades? Absolutely. This is more than bias, though; it’s the simple reality of relevance. If you ask me who the "best" expert is in some niche of my own field or what the best article is on Topic X, I’m going to immediately draw from what I already know. Stating the obvious, I can’t recommend someone or something that I don’t even know exists.

Of course, there are times when we have a responsibility to dig deeper and look for the best candidates outside of our own limited realm of experience. When I was a graduate student at the University of Iowa, I had the opportunity to be the first student in my department to serve on a faculty search committee. One aspect of that experience that stuck with me was Iowa’s affirmative action policy. It wasn’t about numbers and quotas so much as a core philosophy that we had a professional obligation to search far and wide for the best candidate. We had the duty to leave our comfortable world of people just like us and venture into the world of "them".

Confirmation Bias

Beyond simple relevance is something more powerful, and sometimes more insidious. We all have a natural tendency to take sides, and, once we do, to find reasons why our side is right and the other side is wrong. Psychologists call this "confirmation bias," the often unconscious need to find data that confirms what we already believe. If we like someone, we’ll find reasons to support them and give them the benefit of the doubt. If we dislike someone, we’ll find reasons to be suspicious of everything they say and do. If you think confirmation bias is something only other people have, you’re fooling yourself.

Choosing Sides

Beyond our friends, confirmation bias quickly begins to apply to all of our cliques and teams. If you’re a sports fan, then that team mentality is usually just harmless fun – associating with your team provides a shared emotional experience. I’m a Cubs fan – believe me when I say that I understand the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, although not in quite the ratio I’d like. What happens, though, when that team mentality starts to apply to things like politics, as we’ve seen far too often over the past couple of decades (on both sides of the fence)? Suddenly, our clique is 50% of the population, and our enemies are the other 50%. At best, it’s divisive. At worst, it breeds hate, violence, and bigotry.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Of course, we all like to think that we’re free from bias, but the power of bias is that the flaws that are obvious in others are often hidden and unconscious in ourselves. If I mention that I do SEO, do you picture a savvy internet guru or spam-spewing snake-oil salesman? If you’re an SEO, and you hear that I work with SEOmoz, do you think I’m a paragon of white-hat virtue or part of Rand’s evil conspiracy to take over the industry? Reality is probably somewhere in between. If I tell you that I voted for Obama, do you see a beacon of liberal hope or a Communist bent on destroying our nation? I can assure you that I am neither. So, how do we get past these labels and start to understand people, whether personally or professionally?

Get to Know People

Social media has given us a difficult dichotomy. On the one hand, it’s never been easier to "friend" people in shallow and meaningless ways. On the other hand, we have the tools to get to know our peers and friends of friends in ways that were never before possible. The next time you friend someone, take a moment and find out something about them. Where are they from? What do they do? What kind of music do they like? Do they blog? If they do, read a post. If you see a label ("liberal", "conservative", "Twilight fan"), don’t jump to conclusions. Give that person a chance to speak for themselves.

Play In a Different Park

It’s easy to be self-righteous when you’re surrounded by your fan-boys and girls. It’s easy to get a standing ovation at your campaign rally when you only invite the people who gave you the most money. If you want perspective, you have to give up the home-field advantage. If you disagree with someone, comment on their post instead of running back home to write a rant. Try guest-blogging – even better, guest-blog in a different industry. Try to explain why SEO is worthwhile to an audience of small business owners, designers or UX professionals. It’ll be a tough sell, but you’ll learn a lot in the process.

When In Doubt, Ask

Social media is a mine field of misunderstanding – if you’re not sure what someone means in that 140-character Tweet, ask them. If they write a blog post that seems like a personal attack, call them. It’s not just about being nice – bad blood runs deep, and today’s simple misunderstanding could destroy relationships and opportunities tomorrow.

Open Your Circle

We all remember the people who excluded us, and we too often hold that fact against the universe. Let it go. When you finally get into that circle, especially your professional circle, try to remember that someone else is still outside looking in. Here are a few ways to give someone else a chance, because we can all use a little good karma:

Promote other people’s links and awards, even the competition.
If you’re at a conference talking to a group and you see someone standing outside the circle with that awkward look of faux participation, invite them in.
Make an introduction to help someone’s career along.
If someone is new to blogging, comment, subscribe, or even link to them.
When someone challenges you publicly, listen and think before you counterattack.
Don’t envy other people’s success – learn from it and improve.
Every once in a while, shut up and listen.

At the end of the day, those of us who have attained some measure of success need to remember that we all had a little help along the way. Try to return the favor once in a while.

Photo licensed from iStockPhoto.com (Photographer: Hélène Vallée)

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by Dr. Pete

This post started as a reaction to accusations in the SEO industry that Top X lists, awards, etc. are only going to people’s friends. As I was writing it over what ended up being 2 weeks, I realized just how broad this issue really is, from personal to professional to political. I hope you’ll indulge me as I try to do justice to a topic that goes well beyond SEO.

We all know how it feels to be on the outside looking in. You start out feeling awkward and a little envious, but slowly it turns into something worse – depression, resentment, even rage. Eventually, we find a group to belong to, and the tables turn. No matter how often we were excluded (and maybe because of it), we eventually start to exclude others. It’s a vicious, if all too human, cycle, and it extends to every corner of our social interactions.

My Friends Are The Best

Just ask them; I’m sure they’ll agree. Do we prefer our friends? Do we give them the best opportunities and accolades? Absolutely. This is more than bias, though; it’s the simple reality of relevance. If you ask me who the "best" expert is in some niche of my own field or what the best article is on Topic X, I’m going to immediately draw from what I already know. Stating the obvious, I can’t recommend someone or something that I don’t even know exists.

Of course, there are times when we have a responsibility to dig deeper and look for the best candidates outside of our own limited realm of experience. When I was a graduate student at the University of Iowa, I had the opportunity to be the first student in my department to serve on a faculty search committee. One aspect of that experience that stuck with me was Iowa’s affirmative action policy. It wasn’t about numbers and quotas so much as a core philosophy that we had a professional obligation to search far and wide for the best candidate. We had the duty to leave our comfortable world of people just like us and venture into the world of "them".

Confirmation Bias

Beyond simple relevance is something more powerful, and sometimes more insidious. We all have a natural tendency to take sides, and, once we do, to find reasons why our side is right and the other side is wrong. Psychologists call this "confirmation bias," the often unconscious need to find data that confirms what we already believe. If we like someone, we’ll find reasons to support them and give them the benefit of the doubt. If we dislike someone, we’ll find reasons to be suspicious of everything they say and do. If you think confirmation bias is something only other people have, you’re fooling yourself.

Choosing Sides

Beyond our friends, confirmation bias quickly begins to apply to all of our cliques and teams. If you’re a sports fan, then that team mentality is usually just harmless fun – associating with your team provides a shared emotional experience. I’m a Cubs fan – believe me when I say that I understand the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, although not in quite the ratio I’d like. What happens, though, when that team mentality starts to apply to things like politics, as we’ve seen far too often over the past couple of decades (on both sides of the fence)? Suddenly, our clique is 50% of the population, and our enemies are the other 50%. At best, it’s divisive. At worst, it breeds hate, violence, and bigotry.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Of course, we all like to think that we’re free from bias, but the power of bias is that the flaws that are obvious in others are often hidden and unconscious in ourselves. If I mention that I do SEO, do you picture a savvy internet guru or spam-spewing snake-oil salesman? If you’re an SEO, and you hear that I work with SEOmoz, do you think I’m a paragon of white-hat virtue or part of Rand’s evil conspiracy to take over the industry? Reality is probably somewhere in between. If I tell you that I voted for Obama, do you see a beacon of liberal hope or a Communist bent on destroying our nation? I can assure you that I am neither. So, how do we get past these labels and start to understand people, whether personally or professionally?

Get to Know People

Social media has given us a difficult dichotomy. On the one hand, it’s never been easier to "friend" people in shallow and meaningless ways. On the other hand, we have the tools to get to know our peers and friends of friends in ways that were never before possible. The next time you friend someone, take a moment and find out something about them. Where are they from? What do they do? What kind of music do they like? Do they blog? If they do, read a post. If you see a label ("liberal", "conservative", "Twilight fan"), don’t jump to conclusions. Give that person a chance to speak for themselves.

Play In a Different Park

It’s easy to be self-righteous when you’re surrounded by your fan-boys and girls. It’s easy to get a standing ovation at your campaign rally when you only invite the people who gave you the most money. If you want perspective, you have to give up the home-field advantage. If you disagree with someone, comment on their post instead of running back home to write a rant. Try guest-blogging – even better, guest-blog in a different industry. Try to explain why SEO is worthwhile to an audience of small business owners, designers or UX professionals. It’ll be a tough sell, but you’ll learn a lot in the process.

When In Doubt, Ask

Social media is a mine field of misunderstanding – if you’re not sure what someone means in that 140-character Tweet, ask them. If they write a blog post that seems like a personal attack, call them. It’s not just about being nice – bad blood runs deep, and today’s simple misunderstanding could destroy relationships and opportunities tomorrow.

Open Your Circle

We all remember the people who excluded us, and we too often hold that fact against the universe. Let it go. When you finally get into that circle, especially your professional circle, try to remember that someone else is still outside looking in. Here are a few ways to give someone else a chance, because we can all use a little good karma:

Promote other people’s links and awards, even the competition.
If you’re at a conference talking to a group and you see someone standing outside the circle with that awkward look of faux participation, invite them in.
Make an introduction to help someone’s career along.
If someone is new to blogging, comment, subscribe, or even link to them.
When someone challenges you publicly, listen and think before you counterattack.
Don’t envy other people’s success – learn from it and improve.
Every once in a while, shut up and listen.

At the end of the day, those of us who have attained some measure of success need to remember that we all had a little help along the way. Try to return the favor once in a while.

Photo licensed from iStockPhoto.com (Photographer: Hélène Vallée)

Do you like this post? Yes No

11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons Learned in 2009 (and annual moz traffic stats)

On January 12, 2010, In SEO, by Sam Niccolls

Posted by Sam Niccolls

"Don’t do viral marketing until your product doesn’t suck. If you do, more people will find out your product sucks." This pearl of wisdom from serial entrepreneur Dave McClure applies well not only to product development, but also to conversion rate optimization. The extension would be "don’t focus on getting more visitors until your site converts the visitors it already gets."

This is a sentiment we’ve taken to heart here at SEOmoz. So in this post we will share how we grew traffic and conversions in 2009, as well as some of the valuable lessons we’ve learned in the process, which we’re excited to execute on in 2010.

Traffic Statistics from 2009

In the past, SEOmoz has shared data about the traffic we receive (see past years – 2006, 2007). In 2008, we somehow skipped out, but this year, we’re bringing sexy back. Yes, it’s probably helpful to our competitors, but it’s also hugely valuable to our members (we hope) and part of our core value of transparency. So in the same vein of Rand’s blog posts about the venture funding process, we’re opening the kimono and sharing some analysis in hopes that others can benefit from our traffic and conversion rate learnings.

We’ll start with an overview of visitor and broad traffic data:

The early part of the year featured a big growth, as the overall popularity of the site spiked, new traffic sources (like Twitter) started bringing in visitors and we had some big successes with email marketing. The latter part of the year saw relatively steady numbers, with a small, predictable fall in December for the holidays.

Return visits show a fairly similar trend, with a slight drop in Q4 (though, as you’ll see below, it was a massive growth from 2008).

We’ve come a long way in 2009 – growing traffic to the site as a whole and to the blog. Revenue was also up over 250%, so it’s not just additional visits or visitors – conversions have also been improving.

All this raw data is interesting, but it’s even more valuable to dig in deep and identify the opportunities for improvement.

11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons We Learned in 2009

If marketers are captains of leaking ships, finding ways to remove more water faster might work, but plugging the holes and improving conversion rates is much more efficient. At SEOmoz we’re proud of the ship we’re sailing, but there’s also a laundry list of ways we can improve. So based on some of the things we learned in 2009, here are some of the holes we will look to plug to keep the Moz ship rising in 2010.

A note on #10 – there are several ways to implement form field tracking, including onclick events or using the track event in Google Analytics. Additionally, Clicktale, though not part of Google Analytics, is a really useful tool for tracking abandonment. For more information on the subject, Distilled’s Duncan Morris has a detailed follow up post on using jquery and GA to track form abandonment.

The takeaways from these slides shouldn’t be – do exactly what we’re doing on your pages – but rather, find a process at your company to identify where your traffic is going, where you are losing customers, and make small conversion rate improvements because, depending on how you monetize your site, making incremental conversion rate improvements could be the most efficient way to hit your revenue goals this year.

For us at SEOmoz, 2009 was an outstanding traffic year. We’re certainly proud of the fact that over 100,000 more visitors will visit the site this January than last January, but we are also well aware of the fact that more traffic does not equate to more revenue. So for this reason, we will continue to place our efforts on better converting the visitors we already have and better retaining our existing PRO members.

In closing, please note that this post is not meant to bash SEO, PPC, social media marketing, or any other traffic building tactics. Getting traffic to websites is what we do. It’s at the core of what we do at SEOmoz! Our goal is simply to be transparent about how we’re working to improve our business. Admittedly, however, when Rand says conversion rate optimization will be a major trend in 2010, it’s possible he’s projecting just a little.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by Sam Niccolls

"Don’t do viral marketing until your product doesn’t suck. If you do, more people will find out your product sucks." This pearl of wisdom from serial entrepreneur Dave McClure applies well not only to product development, but also to conversion rate optimization. The extension would be "don’t focus on getting more visitors until your site converts the visitors it already gets."

This is a sentiment we’ve taken to heart here at SEOmoz. So in this post we will share how we grew traffic and conversions in 2009, as well as some of the valuable lessons we’ve learned in the process, which we’re excited to execute on in 2010.

Traffic Statistics from 2009

In the past, SEOmoz has shared data about the traffic we receive (see past years – 2006, 2007). In 2008, we somehow skipped out, but this year, we’re bringing sexy back. Yes, it’s probably helpful to our competitors, but it’s also hugely valuable to our members (we hope) and part of our core value of transparency. So in the same vein of Rand’s blog posts about the venture funding process, we’re opening the kimono and sharing some analysis in hopes that others can benefit from our traffic and conversion rate learnings.

We’ll start with an overview of visitor and broad traffic data:

The early part of the year featured a big growth, as the overall popularity of the site spiked, new traffic sources (like Twitter) started bringing in visitors and we had some big successes with email marketing. The latter part of the year saw relatively steady numbers, with a small, predictable fall in December for the holidays.

Return visits show a fairly similar trend, with a slight drop in Q4 (though, as you’ll see below, it was a massive growth from 2008).

We’ve come a long way in 2009 – growing traffic to the site as a whole and to the blog. Revenue was also up over 250%, so it’s not just additional visits or visitors – conversions have also been improving.

All this raw data is interesting, but it’s even more valuable to dig in deep and identify the opportunities for improvement.

11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons We Learned in 2009

If marketers are captains of leaking ships, finding ways to remove more water faster might work, but plugging the holes and improving conversion rates is much more efficient. At SEOmoz we’re proud of the ship we’re sailing, but there’s also a laundry list of ways we can improve. So based on some of the things we learned in 2009, here are some of the holes we will look to plug to keep the Moz ship rising in 2010.

A note on #10 – there are several ways to implement form field tracking, including onclick events or using the track event in Google Analytics. Additionally, Clicktale, though not part of Google Analytics, is a really useful tool for tracking abandonment. For more information on the subject, Distilled’s Duncan Morris has a detailed follow up post on using jquery and GA to track form abandonment.

The takeaways from these slides shouldn’t be – do exactly what we’re doing on your pages – but rather, find a process at your company to identify where your traffic is going, where you are losing customers, and make small conversion rate improvements because, depending on how you monetize your site, making incremental conversion rate improvements could be the most efficient way to hit your revenue goals this year.

For us at SEOmoz, 2009 was an outstanding traffic year. We’re certainly proud of the fact that over 100,000 more visitors will visit the site this January than last January, but we are also well aware of the fact that more traffic does not equate to more revenue. So for this reason, we will continue to place our efforts on better converting the visitors we already have and better retaining our existing PRO members.

In closing, please note that this post is not meant to bash SEO, PPC, social media marketing, or any other traffic building tactics. Getting traffic to websites is what we do. It’s at the core of what we do at SEOmoz! Our goal is simply to be transparent about how we’re working to improve our business. Admittedly, however, when Rand says conversion rate optimization will be a major trend in 2010, it’s possible he’s projecting just a little.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Whiteboard Friday – Keyword Strategies: Kill the Head or Chase the Tail

On January 7, 2010, In SEO, by great scott

Posted by great scott!

Welcome, dear readers, to the first Whiteboard Friday of 2010!! As you may notice, there’s a bit of a new look. This comes in large part from our move to a different video hosting solution. We hope these changes will provide a higher-quality WBF experience, and better accessibility for our viewers around the world. On with the show…

There’s always debate: should you focus on your big head terms, or those wide-ranging tail terms? We’ve invited one of our best mozMates, Will Critchlow of Distilled, to join us for a look at how to balance your keyword strategy.

A major factor in designing your strategy needs to be analytics data. As Will discusses, many people find that analytics show most of their conversions coming from branded keyphrases, but this doesn’t adequately reflect the search path people are following before they make a latent conversion. In the video Rand and Will discuss how to take this into account and make sure you’re targeting the best phrases for your business and your audience.

Will is currently stuck at the airport trying to get home to the snowed-in United Kingdom, so the post he references in the video isn’t available yet. In the mean time, you can view his slide deck from the "Analytics Every SEO Should Know" presentation he gave at the SEOmoz London Seminar this winter. Slides 23 and 24 show a little bit about first-touch and multi-touch search analytics. Keep an eye here, or on the Distilled blog for his post about doing first-touch analysis in Google Analytics.

Will’s post is up! Check it out: How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by great scott!

Welcome, dear readers, to the first Whiteboard Friday of 2010!! As you may notice, there’s a bit of a new look. This comes in large part from our move to a different video hosting solution. We hope these changes will provide a higher-quality WBF experience, and better accessibility for our viewers around the world. On with the show…

There’s always debate: should you focus on your big head terms, or those wide-ranging tail terms? We’ve invited one of our best mozMates, Will Critchlow of Distilled, to join us for a look at how to balance your keyword strategy.

A major factor in designing your strategy needs to be analytics data. As Will discusses, many people find that analytics show most of their conversions coming from branded keyphrases, but this doesn’t adequately reflect the search path people are following before they make a latent conversion. In the video Rand and Will discuss how to take this into account and make sure you’re targeting the best phrases for your business and your audience.

Will is currently stuck at the airport trying to get home to the snowed-in United Kingdom, so the post he references in the video isn’t available yet. In the mean time, you can view his slide deck from the "Analytics Every SEO Should Know" presentation he gave at the SEOmoz London Seminar this winter. Slides 23 and 24 show a little bit about first-touch and multi-touch search analytics. Keep an eye here, or on the Distilled blog for his post about doing first-touch analysis in Google Analytics.

Will’s post is up! Check it out: How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics

Do you like this post? Yes No

Broadening my Reading: 10 Sources I’ve Come to Love

On December 29, 2009, In SEO, by randfish

Posted by randfish

Historically, I’ve been fairly narrow in what I read in the blogosphere and tech arena (almost all SEO-centric stuff). You can see my Firefox sidebar list here, which hasn’t changed much since 2008 with the exception of the blogs and news sections. But, over the past 6 months, I’ve been broadening out considerably and found that it adds a great deal to the conversations I’m able to participate in and contribute to, especially as SEOmoz itself has expanded from the SEO world to the larger technology and startup world. For the New Year, I thought I’d share some of the sources that have contributed most on this front and some of my favorite posts/contributions from those sources.

#1 – Hacker News

(http://news.ycombinator.com)

I find more good stuff here than anywhere else, and the diversity is impressive, too. Tragically, Hacker News is also a place for lots of misinformation, fear, and loathing around SEO, but it’s good to get a sense for how the rest of the technology world still views our niche. The signal to noise ratio is higher than on places like delicious/popular, the tech subreddit or Digg (which has become largely useless to tech professionals as its moved away from its roots).

A few items I’ve found via Hacker News include:

#2 – A VC

(http://www.avc.com)

Fred writes compelling pieces consistently, almost never gets preachy, is self-promotional in a highly credible and useful way and brings up topics I wouldn’t have thought about without him. Most of us can’t have Fred on our boards or as an investor, but we can get into his head via his blog and participating more in the comments there has been a priority of mine for a while (he’s built a remarkable community in the comments).

Some favorite posts:

#3 – Chris Dixon

(http://cdixon.org)

Chris, like Fred, delivers crystal clear value propostions with his posts. And IMO, he’s even higher signal to noise than Fred. I don’t always agree with him on everything, but I like the way he thinks about problems, I like the ones he brings up and I think he has his finger intensely on the pulse of what startups and technologists (and technical marketers like SEOs) are thinking about and dealing with. It’s a pleasure to see a new post from Chris – here’s to hoping he makes many more in 2010.

Some favorites include:

#4 – Techmeme

(http://techmeme.com)

Techmeme is an obvious choice, but it’s also critical to the list. If it weren’t for Techmeme, I’d have to wade through ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and Techcrunch post-by-post, every day. Don’t ever leave us, Gabe.

No specific posts here – there’s far too many to name, and the site updates much too quickly for me to even recall all the great stuff I’ve found here. However, I will say that I highly recommend m.techmeme.com for mobile browsing. It’s been a joy to scroll through every time my wife takes extra-long in the dressing room at Anthropologie.

#5 – Answers On Startups

(http://answers.onstartups.com)

Launched just this past October, Answers On Startups has become a haven for learning more about the challenges, issues and questions entrepreneurs face in the technology world. I’ve recommended it before, and early on participated heavily (and I’d like to do more of that in the future), but if you’re seeking answers from highly authoritative folks in a scalable fashion, this is the spot. I’m really impressed by the quality of many contributions there - the signal to noise is pretty exceptional.

Some of the best include:

#6 – Daring Fireball

(http://daringfireball.net)

In my ideal world, 5 years from now, when I’ve been put out to pasture by someone smarter and more capable, or bought out I’d have a blog like this. Some entries are just links, some are lengthy and thoughtful and all are interesting and worth reading. Author John Gruber also brings a remarkably diverse range of topics to the site and yet somehow, signal to noise remains high.

A few recent picks:

Google’s Meaning of Open (a short, but flawless skewering)
The Next iPhone
A Liberal, Accurate Regex Pattern for Matching URLs

#7 – Steve Blank

(http://steveblank.com)

A few of Steve’s posts are not only relevant, but serve to actually change direction in the executive ranks here at SEOmoz. That’s high praise, but if you read the blog, you’ll see what I mean. Steve’s been there, and his experiences run in shocking parallel to the issues we face or worry about on a regular basis. Even when I disagree with points, the logic and thought he puts into the post makes for a great read and a hard think.

Some of his best:

#8 – NYTimes Most Emailed

(http://www.nytimes.com/gst/mostemailed.html)

Despite the financial and institutional problems they face, the NYTimes still puts out absolutely phenomenal content on nearly every area of life. From cooking to politics, travel to health, there is amazing material to be found in the Grey Lady, and the Most Emailed list is the place to find the best of the best.

Some favorites:

Twitter Chatter During the Superbowl (I love their interactive graphics)
Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners
Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine
100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1)

#9 - Venture Hacks

(http://venturehacks.com)

When I was out trying to raise a second round of VC this summer (big mistake – more on that in a future post), Venturehacks’ historic content was invaluable. However, visiting the site made me realize how much good stuff there is that doesn’t apply only to those currently raising money. They’ve got some seriously great writers/contributors, invaluable interviews and tackle tough subjects.

My personal favorites recently included:

#10 – Twittersphere

(http://twittersphere.com)

Since they don’t publish archives (the most frustrating feature), I’m unable to show off just how cool this site is and has been over the last few months, but just try visiting a couple times a day for the next few weeks and you’ll see. It’s remarkable how much good stuff gets re-tweeted (and how much junk – signal to noise is about 15%, which is still decent since it’s easy to skim and consume at will). You can also get a sense for how important Twitter’s link graph is to the engines through Twittersphere – a lot of pages that have 0 links will have thousands of tweets pretty fast.

Your turn! I’d love to see the sites outside the SEO world that give you the most professional value (and I’m certain the rest of our readers would too). Feel free to link drop even to yourself, so long as it’s relevant

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by randfish

Historically, I’ve been fairly narrow in what I read in the blogosphere and tech arena (almost all SEO-centric stuff). You can see my Firefox sidebar list here, which hasn’t changed much since 2008 with the exception of the blogs and news sections. But, over the past 6 months, I’ve been broadening out considerably and found that it adds a great deal to the conversations I’m able to participate in and contribute to, especially as SEOmoz itself has expanded from the SEO world to the larger technology and startup world. For the New Year, I thought I’d share some of the sources that have contributed most on this front and some of my favorite posts/contributions from those sources.

#1 – Hacker News

(http://news.ycombinator.com)

I find more good stuff here than anywhere else, and the diversity is impressive, too. Tragically, Hacker News is also a place for lots of misinformation, fear, and loathing around SEO, but it’s good to get a sense for how the rest of the technology world still views our niche. The signal to noise ratio is higher than on places like delicious/popular, the tech subreddit or Digg (which has become largely useless to tech professionals as its moved away from its roots).

A few items I’ve found via Hacker News include:

#2 – A VC

(http://www.avc.com)

Fred writes compelling pieces consistently, almost never gets preachy, is self-promotional in a highly credible and useful way and brings up topics I wouldn’t have thought about without him. Most of us can’t have Fred on our boards or as an investor, but we can get into his head via his blog and participating more in the comments there has been a priority of mine for a while (he’s built a remarkable community in the comments).

Some favorite posts:

#3 – Chris Dixon

(http://cdixon.org)

Chris, like Fred, delivers crystal clear value propostions with his posts. And IMO, he’s even higher signal to noise than Fred. I don’t always agree with him on everything, but I like the way he thinks about problems, I like the ones he brings up and I think he has his finger intensely on the pulse of what startups and technologists (and technical marketers like SEOs) are thinking about and dealing with. It’s a pleasure to see a new post from Chris – here’s to hoping he makes many more in 2010.

Some favorites include:

#4 – Techmeme

(http://techmeme.com)

Techmeme is an obvious choice, but it’s also critical to the list. If it weren’t for Techmeme, I’d have to wade through ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and Techcrunch post-by-post, every day. Don’t ever leave us, Gabe.

No specific posts here – there’s far too many to name, and the site updates much too quickly for me to even recall all the great stuff I’ve found here. However, I will say that I highly recommend m.techmeme.com for mobile browsing. It’s been a joy to scroll through every time my wife takes extra-long in the dressing room at Anthropologie.

#5 – Answers On Startups

(http://answers.onstartups.com)

Launched just this past October, Answers On Startups has become a haven for learning more about the challenges, issues and questions entrepreneurs face in the technology world. I’ve recommended it before, and early on participated heavily (and I’d like to do more of that in the future), but if you’re seeking answers from highly authoritative folks in a scalable fashion, this is the spot. I’m really impressed by the quality of many contributions there - the signal to noise is pretty exceptional.

Some of the best include:

#6 – Daring Fireball

(http://daringfireball.net)

In my ideal world, 5 years from now, when I’ve been put out to pasture by someone smarter and more capable, or bought out I’d have a blog like this. Some entries are just links, some are lengthy and thoughtful and all are interesting and worth reading. Author John Gruber also brings a remarkably diverse range of topics to the site and yet somehow, signal to noise remains high.

A few recent picks:

Google’s Meaning of Open (a short, but flawless skewering)
The Next iPhone
A Liberal, Accurate Regex Pattern for Matching URLs

#7 – Steve Blank

(http://steveblank.com)

A few of Steve’s posts are not only relevant, but serve to actually change direction in the executive ranks here at SEOmoz. That’s high praise, but if you read the blog, you’ll see what I mean. Steve’s been there, and his experiences run in shocking parallel to the issues we face or worry about on a regular basis. Even when I disagree with points, the logic and thought he puts into the post makes for a great read and a hard think.

Some of his best:

#8 – NYTimes Most Emailed

(http://www.nytimes.com/gst/mostemailed.html)

Despite the financial and institutional problems they face, the NYTimes still puts out absolutely phenomenal content on nearly every area of life. From cooking to politics, travel to health, there is amazing material to be found in the Grey Lady, and the Most Emailed list is the place to find the best of the best.

Some favorites:

Twitter Chatter During the Superbowl (I love their interactive graphics)
Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners
Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine
100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1)

#9 - Venture Hacks

(http://venturehacks.com)

When I was out trying to raise a second round of VC this summer (big mistake – more on that in a future post), Venturehacks’ historic content was invaluable. However, visiting the site made me realize how much good stuff there is that doesn’t apply only to those currently raising money. They’ve got some seriously great writers/contributors, invaluable interviews and tackle tough subjects.

My personal favorites recently included:

#10 – Twittersphere

(http://twittersphere.com)

Since they don’t publish archives (the most frustrating feature), I’m unable to show off just how cool this site is and has been over the last few months, but just try visiting a couple times a day for the next few weeks and you’ll see. It’s remarkable how much good stuff gets re-tweeted (and how much junk – signal to noise is about 15%, which is still decent since it’s easy to skim and consume at will). You can also get a sense for how important Twitter’s link graph is to the engines through Twittersphere – a lot of pages that have 0 links will have thousands of tweets pretty fast.

Your turn! I’d love to see the sites outside the SEO world that give you the most professional value (and I’m certain the rest of our readers would too). Feel free to link drop even to yourself, so long as it’s relevant

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8 Predictions for SEO in 2010

On December 15, 2009, In SEO, by randfish

Posted by randfish

First off, apologies for my absence from the blog these past few days. It’s been an incredibly busy time, trying to wrap things up before I leave for San Diego over the holidays. So much for a December lull… In this post, I’m going to try tackling a lot of the recent trends we’ve been observing from the engines and talk about my personal perception of what’s to come over the next 12 months.

#1 – This Real-Time Search Thing is Outta Here

Microsoft initially beat Google to the punch in announcing their integration with Twitter data in their SERPs. And in response, last Monday, Google released what is, in my opinion, an early test version of Twitter integration that’s nowhere near ready for prime-time. Google has a history of jumping the gun to prevent other companies from stealing the press narrative, but in this case, I think it’s seriously damaging (and nearly everyone, consumer or search enthusiast, agrees) their usability and relevance.

As Danny Sullivan notes, it’s like we’re back to Infoseek in 1997. If you want to rank #1, don’t worry about quality content, relevance or popularity, just be the last person to Tweet about a topic and you’ll come out on top (at least, for a few seconds).

This is, in my estimation (and many others), the worst implementation of new results Google’s ever implemented. I imagine the clickthrough and abandonment stats have their usability folks up in arms already, and it’s only to preserve face from a PR perspective (as well as an increasingly prideful attitude of "Don’t like it? So what are you gonna do about it?" that Aaron Wall describes in a gutting fashion here) that this has stayed in place as long as it has (1.5 weeks).

In 2010, I think this fades away. Perhaps not entirely, but we won’t be seeing it for nearly as many queries with the prevalence we do today. Google may love real time, and it’s certainly gotten them a lot of press (though very little of it is entirely positive), but they can’t continue sacrificing quality for PR in this fashion. I think the engineers still run things over there, and the stats data is already making them balk. Although I don’t have numbers, my impression is that we’re already way down in the quantity of queries showing real time results compared to last week.

#2 – Twitter’s "Link Graph" is the Real Deal

All that real-time integration bashing aside, I’m a firm believer in my original hypothesis that Twitter is cannibalizing the web’s link graph. In fact, I think a rough history of "recommendation sources" looks something like:

Google has always strived to keep up with the latest ways that content is being recommended and suggested. It’s how they determined popularity and relevance with PageRank and I think Twitter’s data is merely the next evolution. Just yesterday, they launched their own URL shortening service (I think this was more to get data, but it’s also possible it was a pre-emptive PR strike against bit.ly, who launched their PRO service just a day later).

Google’s not going to just take raw number of tweets or re-tweets. I think we’re already seeing the relevance and reputation calculations in their decisions of which tweets and sources to show in the real-time results, and I expect that algorithms/metrics like PageRank, TrustRank, etc. will find their way into how Google uses the real-time data. Today, SEOs want to turn tweets into links so they can get SEO benefit. My feeling is that tweets are going to carry their own weight in helping pages rank in the not-too-distant future.

#3 – Personalized Search is Here to Stay

Unlike real-time’s temporal nature in the results, I think personalized search is here for the long haul. Google released their "permanent" personalization of results last week, and Bing released their own just this week. As usual, SearchEngineLand’s coverage is impeccable, though one big question remains in my mind:

What metrics impact personalization?

Is it merely clickthroughs from the organic results? Does visit history play a role? Or clicks from other vertical search services Google offers? What about clicks from paid search ads – either in the SERPs or from AdSense/DoubleClick?

I’d love to see experimentation done on this front so marketers have a better idea what they’re dealing with. If it’s proven that you can get organic benefits by attracting PPC clickthrough, this may be the new "paid inclusion" for 2010, and could drive bid prices up massively as companies compete not only for paid listing clicks, but for the chance to earn "organic" positioning as well.

Personalization means a few things for SEOs, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the game, IMO:

The Rich Get Richer – It’s now truer than ever. If you rank well, and earn solid traffic, you’re going to be even harder to unseat. Startups and upstarts are going to have an even greater uphill battle to climb than before.
Branding is More Important – you want your loyal visitors and fans scouring the SERPs for your listings, and clicking them more so than anything else. I expect some clever spammers are going to be manipulating this with everything from Mechanical Turk to virus infections that make their browser search for their brand and click those results. We’ll see if Google has good protections in place to defend against this.
There is No Normal Ranking – Or, at least, there’s no "normal" ranking that’s "average" in a personalized SERPs world. Rank tracking may still carry some value to understand how non-personalized searchers see your pages, but that data is going to be less useful in comparison to what your analytics report about search traffic and the trends. Win the "personalization" battle, and you may start to care less about the classic "rankings" battle.

Whenever we encounter these "paradigm changing" events in the SEO world, I like to go back to my philosophy about SEO fundamentals. From what I can see, it looks like things haven’t changed enough yet to warrant panic. It’s been a massively dynamic 3 months, but we’re not on the precipice of anything that’s going to shift SEO in the ways some previous "game-changers" have.

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World

The latest figures suggest that Google continues to slowly gain market share in the US, while Bing & Yahoo! compete for share that will eventually belong to them both (once the regulatory hurdles clear, which I think they will). I believe that a year from now, most webmasters will be looking at a scenario where Comscore/Hitwise reports Binghoo! has ~25-28% market share, but those engines combine to send a little under 20% of all search traffic (remember that they count searches on all Microsoft and Yahoo! properties – even internal searches – while Google tends to send the vast majority of their search traffic externally to other sites).

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear

Tragically, everything I hear out of Yahoo! and Bing is that Site Explorer is off to the great beyond. The expense of maintaining a web index isn’t something Yahoo!’s willing to invest in once they don’t have to, and Bing’s given no indication that they’re going to re-open the portal to link information. The best we can hope for is an acceleration in the functionality offered by Bing Webmaster Tools, but even that’s unlikely to offer competitive link intelligence.

I’m guessing other services will rise up to try to take Site Explorer’s place, as the service had millions of monthly queries run against it.

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically

Forrester put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend (a little pricey at $1749, but interesting). Two graphics struck me as particularly compelling:

SEO trails only social media and online video as places where marketers (not just search marketers, but ALL marketers) will be shifting dollars.

Meanwhile, SEO continues to outpace PPC in terms of CAGR. We’ve still got a long way to go before balance is established between the share of clicks SEO commands and the fraction of spend it receives, but the gap is slowly closing.

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization

If I were doing another startup today, it would focus on software for conversion rate optimization. I think this is still the most under-utilized and highest ROI activities in the marketing department, but more awareness is on its way. CRO isn’t just about testing; it’s about building a process for improving conversion over time. Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this, yet few invest. I think 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value. These guys are likely in for a blockbuster year; I wish I could invest :-)

This graphic comes via my post on choosing which Internet Marketing Channel to Pursue.

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic

Google & Bing are both doing more to make their visitors stickier and get their queries answered without ever having to leave the engine. This is a good product practice for both companies, and I’m surprised Google’s taken so long to move away from their "get people off Google" point-of-view, but it’s definitely happening. Check out some recent examples:

Everything I need to know is right there – the last game score, the record, the opponent, their next match day and time. The only thing missing? What channel it’s playing on in my area.

I don’t even have to complete my query! Google’s got that weather report sitting in the suggest box. They wrote about this feature here which launched last week. Google O/S had another good post on the topic.

Thankfully, I’m not actually headed to Kodiak, but those results are pretty spiffy, and are likely to prevent me from needing to visit Alaskaair.com and get that flight info.

The customer service number is something Bing’s started to provide more and more (though there’s one company even they don’t have that data on). With Fedex, you don’t even need to leave Bing to track a package (Google also offers similar functionality).

My perception is that the more the engines can apply "instant answers" to search queries, the more they will, and the less any other sites will see traffic from those queries. It’s a better user experience this way, and I’m certain it’s one of the biggest things that engenders loyalty and return queries – something both engines are desperately competing for.

This post isn’t intended to be one-sided, and I’d love to hear from you – do you agree? Disagree? Think I’m out of my head? Let everyone know

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by randfish

First off, apologies for my absence from the blog these past few days. It’s been an incredibly busy time, trying to wrap things up before I leave for San Diego over the holidays. So much for a December lull… In this post, I’m going to try tackling a lot of the recent trends we’ve been observing from the engines and talk about my personal perception of what’s to come over the next 12 months.

#1 – This Real-Time Search Thing is Outta Here

Microsoft initially beat Google to the punch in announcing their integration with Twitter data in their SERPs. And in response, last Monday, Google released what is, in my opinion, an early test version of Twitter integration that’s nowhere near ready for prime-time. Google has a history of jumping the gun to prevent other companies from stealing the press narrative, but in this case, I think it’s seriously damaging (and nearly everyone, consumer or search enthusiast, agrees) their usability and relevance.

As Danny Sullivan notes, it’s like we’re back to Infoseek in 1997. If you want to rank #1, don’t worry about quality content, relevance or popularity, just be the last person to Tweet about a topic and you’ll come out on top (at least, for a few seconds).

This is, in my estimation (and many others), the worst implementation of new results Google’s ever implemented. I imagine the clickthrough and abandonment stats have their usability folks up in arms already, and it’s only to preserve face from a PR perspective (as well as an increasingly prideful attitude of "Don’t like it? So what are you gonna do about it?" that Aaron Wall describes in a gutting fashion here) that this has stayed in place as long as it has (1.5 weeks).

In 2010, I think this fades away. Perhaps not entirely, but we won’t be seeing it for nearly as many queries with the prevalence we do today. Google may love real time, and it’s certainly gotten them a lot of press (though very little of it is entirely positive), but they can’t continue sacrificing quality for PR in this fashion. I think the engineers still run things over there, and the stats data is already making them balk. Although I don’t have numbers, my impression is that we’re already way down in the quantity of queries showing real time results compared to last week.

#2 – Twitter’s "Link Graph" is the Real Deal

All that real-time integration bashing aside, I’m a firm believer in my original hypothesis that Twitter is cannibalizing the web’s link graph. In fact, I think a rough history of "recommendation sources" looks something like:

Google has always strived to keep up with the latest ways that content is being recommended and suggested. It’s how they determined popularity and relevance with PageRank and I think Twitter’s data is merely the next evolution. Just yesterday, they launched their own URL shortening service (I think this was more to get data, but it’s also possible it was a pre-emptive PR strike against bit.ly, who launched their PRO service just a day later).

Google’s not going to just take raw number of tweets or re-tweets. I think we’re already seeing the relevance and reputation calculations in their decisions of which tweets and sources to show in the real-time results, and I expect that algorithms/metrics like PageRank, TrustRank, etc. will find their way into how Google uses the real-time data. Today, SEOs want to turn tweets into links so they can get SEO benefit. My feeling is that tweets are going to carry their own weight in helping pages rank in the not-too-distant future.

#3 – Personalized Search is Here to Stay

Unlike real-time’s temporal nature in the results, I think personalized search is here for the long haul. Google released their "permanent" personalization of results last week, and Bing released their own just this week. As usual, SearchEngineLand’s coverage is impeccable, though one big question remains in my mind:

What metrics impact personalization?

Is it merely clickthroughs from the organic results? Does visit history play a role? Or clicks from other vertical search services Google offers? What about clicks from paid search ads – either in the SERPs or from AdSense/DoubleClick?

I’d love to see experimentation done on this front so marketers have a better idea what they’re dealing with. If it’s proven that you can get organic benefits by attracting PPC clickthrough, this may be the new "paid inclusion" for 2010, and could drive bid prices up massively as companies compete not only for paid listing clicks, but for the chance to earn "organic" positioning as well.

Personalization means a few things for SEOs, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the game, IMO:

The Rich Get Richer – It’s now truer than ever. If you rank well, and earn solid traffic, you’re going to be even harder to unseat. Startups and upstarts are going to have an even greater uphill battle to climb than before.
Branding is More Important – you want your loyal visitors and fans scouring the SERPs for your listings, and clicking them more so than anything else. I expect some clever spammers are going to be manipulating this with everything from Mechanical Turk to virus infections that make their browser search for their brand and click those results. We’ll see if Google has good protections in place to defend against this.
There is No Normal Ranking – Or, at least, there’s no "normal" ranking that’s "average" in a personalized SERPs world. Rank tracking may still carry some value to understand how non-personalized searchers see your pages, but that data is going to be less useful in comparison to what your analytics report about search traffic and the trends. Win the "personalization" battle, and you may start to care less about the classic "rankings" battle.

Whenever we encounter these "paradigm changing" events in the SEO world, I like to go back to my philosophy about SEO fundamentals. From what I can see, it looks like things haven’t changed enough yet to warrant panic. It’s been a massively dynamic 3 months, but we’re not on the precipice of anything that’s going to shift SEO in the ways some previous "game-changers" have.

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World

The latest figures suggest that Google continues to slowly gain market share in the US, while Bing & Yahoo! compete for share that will eventually belong to them both (once the regulatory hurdles clear, which I think they will). I believe that a year from now, most webmasters will be looking at a scenario where Comscore/Hitwise reports Binghoo! has ~25-28% market share, but those engines combine to send a little under 20% of all search traffic (remember that they count searches on all Microsoft and Yahoo! properties – even internal searches – while Google tends to send the vast majority of their search traffic externally to other sites).

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear

Tragically, everything I hear out of Yahoo! and Bing is that Site Explorer is off to the great beyond. The expense of maintaining a web index isn’t something Yahoo!’s willing to invest in once they don’t have to, and Bing’s given no indication that they’re going to re-open the portal to link information. The best we can hope for is an acceleration in the functionality offered by Bing Webmaster Tools, but even that’s unlikely to offer competitive link intelligence.

I’m guessing other services will rise up to try to take Site Explorer’s place, as the service had millions of monthly queries run against it.

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically

Forrester put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend (a little pricey at $1749, but interesting). Two graphics struck me as particularly compelling:

SEO trails only social media and online video as places where marketers (not just search marketers, but ALL marketers) will be shifting dollars.

Meanwhile, SEO continues to outpace PPC in terms of CAGR. We’ve still got a long way to go before balance is established between the share of clicks SEO commands and the fraction of spend it receives, but the gap is slowly closing.

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization

If I were doing another startup today, it would focus on software for conversion rate optimization. I think this is still the most under-utilized and highest ROI activities in the marketing department, but more awareness is on its way. CRO isn’t just about testing; it’s about building a process for improving conversion over time. Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this, yet few invest. I think 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value. These guys are likely in for a blockbuster year; I wish I could invest :-)

This graphic comes via my post on choosing which Internet Marketing Channel to Pursue.

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic

Google & Bing are both doing more to make their visitors stickier and get their queries answered without ever having to leave the engine. This is a good product practice for both companies, and I’m surprised Google’s taken so long to move away from their "get people off Google" point-of-view, but it’s definitely happening. Check out some recent examples:

Everything I need to know is right there – the last game score, the record, the opponent, their next match day and time. The only thing missing? What channel it’s playing on in my area.

I don’t even have to complete my query! Google’s got that weather report sitting in the suggest box. They wrote about this feature here which launched last week. Google O/S had another good post on the topic.

Thankfully, I’m not actually headed to Kodiak, but those results are pretty spiffy, and are likely to prevent me from needing to visit Alaskaair.com and get that flight info.

The customer service number is something Bing’s started to provide more and more (though there’s one company even they don’t have that data on). With Fedex, you don’t even need to leave Bing to track a package (Google also offers similar functionality).

My perception is that the more the engines can apply "instant answers" to search queries, the more they will, and the less any other sites will see traffic from those queries. It’s a better user experience this way, and I’m certain it’s one of the biggest things that engenders loyalty and return queries – something both engines are desperately competing for.

This post isn’t intended to be one-sided, and I’d love to hear from you – do you agree? Disagree? Think I’m out of my head? Let everyone know

Do you like this post? Yes No

Best of 2009 – Favorite Articles

On December 3, 2009, In SEO, by jennita

Posted by jennita

Disclaimer: This article consists of our favorite articles of the past year and does not have actionable SEO techniques. Please read on if you’re interested in knowing more about us, and what we like!

This week I’ve been personally invested in Gwen Bell’s The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge aka #best09. The idea is that each day in December you reflect on the past year and write about a different topic each day. Obviously you can write every day, or pick and choose which topics you want to cover. It’s only been a few days but I’ve enjoyed reading through some of the blogs and tweets from people participating. Today the topic is:

December 3 Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious’d and reference throughout the year.

Since the topic is right up our alley, the SEOmoz crew decided to put together a list of our favorite articles from 2009. Some of these are search related, but many of them are not. Take a peek into our minds and I think you’ll find it interesting the types of articles we love.

Scott

Not sure if it "qualifies" since it’s from last year, but I shared this article, about what it really means to be a billionaire, with a ton of people. It’s absolutely fascinating, especially if you’re someone (like me) who fantasizes about how you would potentially spend great sums of cash

On the flip-side of the equation is this excellent article from the Washington Post illuminating the incredibly high cost of being poor. Fascinating and eye-opening.

Together they pack a one-two punch that sheds a ton of light on just how drastic wealth and class disparity can be, even in the U.S.

Pete

I’m a big fan of this GapingVoid post from October: The moment

From an SEO standpoint, I’ve been getting a lot of mileage from Eric Enge’s interview with Google Image search engineer Peter Linsley. It’s a topic that doesn’t get covered often, and the information in the article is incredibly useful.

This Smashing Mag post is Usability-oriented, but great stuff for any web person. Unlike many of these kinds of articles, almost every point in this one is directly actionable:

Of course, I also think this post was pretty good – the author is clearly a genius

Danny

Life lesson: There is no speed limit – talks about how education is designed to get everyone through and how many people take this slow pace with them throughout their life.

We Have Been De-googled! – One blog talks about the impact of being kicked out of Google for seemingly no reason.

Jen

The article that made the biggest impact on my life this year was this one from SEOmoz. It is Lindsay’s first post and it was an announcement of the job opening I ended up getting.

Personally this short post helped me get my personal goals organized.

Rand

Rand’s favorites from the past few months:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/youre-just-getting-started/
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/11/24/on-self-promotion/
http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/
http://www.everywhereist.com/borough-market-a-place-for-love-but-not-vegetarians/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html?hp
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html?partner=fogcreek
http://cdixon.org/?p=1391

I’ll continue to add to this list if any of the other team members decide to add theirs as well. 2009 has been a wonderful year for us and we look forward to many great articles in 2010. Please tell us about your favorite posts and articles from 2009. And we encourage you to be a part of the blog challenge!

By the way, there’s still time to get your FREE SES Chicago Pass by purchasing a year of PRO! We’ve only got a few passes left, so you should probably hurry. SES just raised their prices to $1995 for a pass, so $799 for an entire year of PRO and a full-access SES Pass is an awesome deal (and if Chicago’s not your thing, SES will let you exchange the pass for any SES Event in 2010).

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by jennita

Disclaimer: This article consists of our favorite articles of the past year and does not have actionable SEO techniques. Please read on if you’re interested in knowing more about us, and what we like!

This week I’ve been personally invested in Gwen Bell’s The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge aka #best09. The idea is that each day in December you reflect on the past year and write about a different topic each day. Obviously you can write every day, or pick and choose which topics you want to cover. It’s only been a few days but I’ve enjoyed reading through some of the blogs and tweets from people participating. Today the topic is:

December 3 Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious’d and reference throughout the year.

Since the topic is right up our alley, the SEOmoz crew decided to put together a list of our favorite articles from 2009. Some of these are search related, but many of them are not. Take a peek into our minds and I think you’ll find it interesting the types of articles we love.

Scott

Not sure if it "qualifies" since it’s from last year, but I shared this article, about what it really means to be a billionaire, with a ton of people. It’s absolutely fascinating, especially if you’re someone (like me) who fantasizes about how you would potentially spend great sums of cash

On the flip-side of the equation is this excellent article from the Washington Post illuminating the incredibly high cost of being poor. Fascinating and eye-opening.

Together they pack a one-two punch that sheds a ton of light on just how drastic wealth and class disparity can be, even in the U.S.

Pete

I’m a big fan of this GapingVoid post from October: The moment

From an SEO standpoint, I’ve been getting a lot of mileage from Eric Enge’s interview with Google Image search engineer Peter Linsley. It’s a topic that doesn’t get covered often, and the information in the article is incredibly useful.

This Smashing Mag post is Usability-oriented, but great stuff for any web person. Unlike many of these kinds of articles, almost every point in this one is directly actionable:

Of course, I also think this post was pretty good – the author is clearly a genius

Danny

Life lesson: There is no speed limit – talks about how education is designed to get everyone through and how many people take this slow pace with them throughout their life.

We Have Been De-googled! – One blog talks about the impact of being kicked out of Google for seemingly no reason.

Jen

The article that made the biggest impact on my life this year was this one from SEOmoz. It is Lindsay’s first post and it was an announcement of the job opening I ended up getting.

Personally this short post helped me get my personal goals organized.

Rand

Rand’s favorites from the past few months:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/youre-just-getting-started/
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/11/24/on-self-promotion/
http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/
http://www.everywhereist.com/borough-market-a-place-for-love-but-not-vegetarians/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html?hp
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html?partner=fogcreek
http://cdixon.org/?p=1391

I’ll continue to add to this list if any of the other team members decide to add theirs as well. 2009 has been a wonderful year for us and we look forward to many great articles in 2010. Please tell us about your favorite posts and articles from 2009. And we encourage you to be a part of the blog challenge!

By the way, there’s still time to get your FREE SES Chicago Pass by purchasing a year of PRO! We’ve only got a few passes left, so you should probably hurry. SES just raised their prices to $1995 for a pass, so $799 for an entire year of PRO and a full-access SES Pass is an awesome deal (and if Chicago’s not your thing, SES will let you exchange the pass for any SES Event in 2010).

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Bing Maps Adds Features & Augmented Reality

On December 3, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

Microsoft made buzz yesterday with the announcements on the Bing Maps blog and Bing Search Blog.

Greg Sterling explains it well at Search Engine Land as “Bing Maps breaks new ground in online mapping even as it plays a bit of catch up with Google.”

The augmented reality comes in where Microsoft overlays data on those maps in a more social way. Microsoft explains:

Photosynth and Silverlight are the underlying technologies in Bing Maps that connect everything and help provide the more seamless experience. Based on Seadragon and Photo Tourism concepts, Photosynth lets us literally “stitch” together photographs to provide more realistic view of locations as they appear in real life. Photosynth-enabled Streetside imagery is built on geometric models that are reconstructed underneath the imagery to provide a truly 3D experience that shows locations as they are in real life.

The screen shots at the various blogs are neat, the only downside is the requirement to install Silverlight (I am a mac user). For more coverage of this, see Techmeme.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft made buzz yesterday with the announcements on the Bing Maps blog and Bing Search Blog.

Greg Sterling explains it well at Search Engine Land as “Bing Maps breaks new ground in online mapping even as it plays a bit of catch up with Google.”

The augmented reality comes in where Microsoft overlays data on those maps in a more social way. Microsoft explains:

Photosynth and Silverlight are the underlying technologies in Bing Maps that connect everything and help provide the more seamless experience. Based on Seadragon and Photo Tourism concepts, Photosynth lets us literally “stitch” together photographs to provide more realistic view of locations as they appear in real life. Photosynth-enabled Streetside imagery is built on geometric models that are reconstructed underneath the imagery to provide a truly 3D experience that shows locations as they are in real life.

The screen shots at the various blogs are neat, the only downside is the requirement to install Silverlight (I am a mac user). For more coverage of this, see Techmeme.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense Bans Publisher For Copyright Infringement Over Their Own Copyrights

On December 1, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

A Google AdSense Help thread reports that an AdSense publisher was banned or disapproved from Google AdSense because the content on their web site is copyrighted. This happens all the time, but in this case, the content that is copyrighted is copyrighted by them and they have the right to use this content – since it is theirs.

The publisher wrote:

I am the one and only owner of the copyright of all my books (they are in print for more than 10 years) presented on my site. However my site hasn’t been approved for Google Adsense because “it contains copyrighted material”. Yes, the material is copyrighted. But it is copyrighted by me.

The email that said that rigmarole to me is “noreply”. How can I point out the silly mistake to the Google worker who made it?

You just have to laugh, don’t you?

Googler, Jennifer, replied to the thread saying, “I’ll look into this and get back to you.”

Can’t wait to see the outcome. Either this person is lying or something weird is going on.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

A Google AdSense Help thread reports that an AdSense publisher was banned or disapproved from Google AdSense because the content on their web site is copyrighted. This happens all the time, but in this case, the content that is copyrighted is copyrighted by them and they have the right to use this content – since it is theirs.

The publisher wrote:

I am the one and only owner of the copyright of all my books (they are in print for more than 10 years) presented on my site. However my site hasn’t been approved for Google Adsense because “it contains copyrighted material”. Yes, the material is copyrighted. But it is copyrighted by me.

The email that said that rigmarole to me is “noreply”. How can I point out the silly mistake to the Google worker who made it?

You just have to laugh, don’t you?

Googler, Jennifer, replied to the thread saying, “I’ll look into this and get back to you.”

Can’t wait to see the outcome. Either this person is lying or something weird is going on.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: November 27, 2009

On November 27, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

There seems to be a major Google update going on, some suspect it is Caffeine related while others do not. Google said comment spam can hurt you bad. Rich snippets are now showing in other Google properties, such as Google UK and Canada. Don’t waste your time with a banned domain. Bing and News Corp try to team up to bait Google on indexing their content. Is Bing now handling 301 redirects properly? If you are banned in AdWords, you likely will never be unbanned. Google opened product ads to all U.S. advertisers and then showed off all their new ad styles. Google Maps bug removed the local pack for web design like searches. Google AdSense bug showed weird HTML characters in the ads. Google is testing related search results in the top navigation bar. The Michelle Obama racist image reappeared and Google could not remove it, so they placed an ad as to why not. Finally, we posted all the Thanksgiving logos from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Dogpile and others – so check it out. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit “HD.”

Search Topics of Discussion:
Google SEO:

Bing:

Google AdWords:

Google Maps:

Google Bug Removes Web Designers in Local Pack

Google AdSense:

Google AdSense Bug Displaying Weird Characters in Ads

Misc Google:

Community:

Thanksgiving Greetings 2009 From Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask & Search Industry

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

There seems to be a major Google update going on, some suspect it is Caffeine related while others do not. Google said comment spam can hurt you bad. Rich snippets are now showing in other Google properties, such as Google UK and Canada. Don’t waste your time with a banned domain. Bing and News Corp try to team up to bait Google on indexing their content. Is Bing now handling 301 redirects properly? If you are banned in AdWords, you likely will never be unbanned. Google opened product ads to all U.S. advertisers and then showed off all their new ad styles. Google Maps bug removed the local pack for web design like searches. Google AdSense bug showed weird HTML characters in the ads. Google is testing related search results in the top navigation bar. The Michelle Obama racist image reappeared and Google could not remove it, so they placed an ad as to why not. Finally, we posted all the Thanksgiving logos from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Dogpile and others – so check it out. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit “HD.”

Search Topics of Discussion:
Google SEO:

Bing:

Google AdWords:

Google Maps:

Google Bug Removes Web Designers in Local Pack

Google AdSense:

Google AdSense Bug Displaying Weird Characters in Ads

Misc Google:

Community:

Thanksgiving Greetings 2009 From Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask & Search Industry

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers

On November 23, 2009, In SEO, Web Design Tips, by Soh Tanaka

This post is the the next installment of posts featuring “Useful Coding Solutions for Designers and Developers“, a series of posts focusing on unique and creative CSS/JavaScript-techniques being implemented by talented professionals in our industry. A key talent that any Web designer must acquire is the ability to observe, understand and build on other people’s designs. This is a great way to develop the skills and techniques necessary to produce effective websites.

With that in mind, let’s look at some clever techniques developed and used by top professionals in the Web design industry. We can use their examples to develop our own alternative solutions.

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width="650"> style="width:650px;"> src="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/static/smashing-magazine-advertisement.gif" alt="Smashing-magazine-advertisement in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" border="0" /> /> href="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/ck.php?zoneid=56" > src="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=56" border="0" alt=" in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" /> href="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/ck.php?zoneid=63" > src="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=63" border="0" alt=" in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" /> href="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/ck.php?zoneid=64" > src="http://creatives.commindo-media.de/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=64" border="0" alt=" in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

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This post is the the next installment of posts featuring “ href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/11/5-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Useful Coding Solutions for Designers and Developers“, a series of posts focusing on unique and creative CSS/JavaScript-techniques being implemented by talented professionals in our industry. A key talent that any Web designer must acquire is the ability to observe, understand and build on other people’s designs. This is a great way to develop the skills and techniques necessary to produce effective websites.

With that in mind, let’s look at some clever techniques developed and used by top professionals in the Web design industry. We can use their examples to develop our own alternative solutions.

1. Designing a Slick CSS Timeline

Designing a timeline is one of the tasks that frequently need to be solved when it comes to the design of portfolios. Some designers present the timeline as an image, others use plain text or use a good old table. We found an interesting CSS-based solution of a timeline over at href="http://37signals.com/about">37Signals.com. While timelines are usually designed horizontally, this one is vertical, zig-zagging down each time slot.

href="http://37signals.com/about"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/css-timeline.jpg" width="573" height="607" alt="Css-timeline in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

How is this done? />To achieve this zig-zag effect, we will be floating each row. By assigning an “even” class, we are able to specify a different style for the right-aligned time slots, controlling their colors and alignment. /> href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/timeline.htm">See the demo.

class="showcase"> href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/timeline.htm"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_2_b.gif" width="500" height="270" alt="Article 2 B in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Here is the HTML:

<div class="timeslot">
	<span>2009</span>
	<p>Duis acsi ullamcorper humo decet, incassum validus, appellatio in qui tation roto, lobortis brevitas epulae. Et ymo eu utrum probo ut, jugis, delenit.
	</p>
	</div>
	<div class="timeslot even">
	<span>2008</span>
	<p>Duis acsi ullamcorper humo decet, incassum validus, appellatio in qui tation roto, lobortis brevitas epulae. Et ymo eu utrum probo ut, jugis, delenit.
	</p>
</div>

And here is the CSS:

The default timeslot will float left and have a 100-pixel padding to the right. This leaves room for the year (<span>) to sit to its right. I also used absolute positioning for the year so that I could easily switch from left to right without worrying about colliding float issues.

Add a class of even to each even row, so that we get it right-aligned in red and the year positioned to the left.

.timeslot {
	width: 235px;
	float: left;
	margin: 0 0 10px;
	padding: 10px 100px 0 0;
	border-top: 3px solid #ddd;
	position: relative;
}
.timeslot span {
	position: absolute;
	right: 0;
	top: 27px;
	font-size: 3em;
	color: #999;
}
.even {
	float: right;
	padding: 10px 0 0 100px;
	border-color: #ca0000;
}
.even span {
	left: 0;
	color: #ca0000;
}

2. Custom Page Styling, CSS Drop Caps and Footnotes

One website that is truly unique is href="http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/mathematics-of-the-tootsie-pop/">Jason Santa Maria’s. What’s impressive about Jason’s website is that each article and blog post is entirely unique, with its design tailored to the content. Looking at a recent article, “ href="http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/mathematics-of-the-tootsie-pop/">Mathematics of the Tootsie Pop,” we’ll go over a few techniques that stand out for us.

href="http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/mathematics-of-the-tootsie-pop/"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_a.gif" alt="Article 1 A in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

1. Custom Page Styling in WordPress

The first question that came to mind when visiting Jason’s blog was, “How did he give each post a unique design?” You can achieve this simply by referencing a custom style sheet to override the website’s default style. By using a combination of href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Fields">custom fields in WordPress and understanding href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/27/css-specificity-things-you-should-know/">CSS specificity, you can freely give each post a design of its own. So, how is this done?

Step 1. Customize post with custom style sheet />Start by creating a new style sheet, and name the file to match your post’s title. With a good understanding of href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/27/css-specificity-things-you-should-know/">CSS specificity, you can customize the look and feel of the post.

Step 2. Create custom field values />Log in to your WordPress admin area, and go to the edit page for the post. Scroll down to the “Custom Field” area, and enter a new custom field name called “customStyles”. Then, for the value of that custom field, enter the full URL of your custom style sheet.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_d.gif" alt="Article 1 D in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Step 3. Call the custom style sheet />Open up the header.php file in your custom theme, and above your <title> tag, add the following:

<?php $customStyles = get_post_meta($post->ID, "customStyles", true);
if (!empty($customStyles)) { ?>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $customStyles; ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<?php } ?>

In this step, we’re checking if a custom field of “customStyles” exists. If it does, then it will inject the value within the href of the style sheet reference.

Custom field tutorials:

href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/13/10-custom-fields-hacks-for-WordPress/">Custom Fields Hacks For WordPress
href="http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/12/17/WordPress-custom-fields-tutorial/">WordPress Custom Fields, Part I: The Basics
href="http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/12/22/WordPress-custom-fields-tips-tricks/">WordPress Custom Fields, Part II: Tips and Tricks

CSS specificity tutorials:

href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/27/css-specificity-things-you-should-know/">CSS Specificity: Things You Should Know
href="http://css-tricks.com/specifics-on-css-specificity/">Specifics on CSS Specificity
href="http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/understanding_c/">Understanding CSS Specificity

2. Creating Drop Caps

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_b.gif" alt="Article 1 B in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Drop caps are commonly seen in print design, but with the recent rise in popularity of Web typography, this technique seems to be becoming more common. We have various ways of achieving this technique.

Here is the HTML you would use:

	<p><span class="dropCap">E</span>ros decet bis eligo jumentum brevitas vel abigo iusto commoveo ex abigo, euismod ulciscor. Bene enim vulputate enim, nisl illum patria. Enim te, verto euismod in nisl lucidus. Capio incassum quadrum nunc ex proprius praesent et quod. Autem in commoveo similis nostrud turpis paulatim quadrum, tristique. </p>

Plain-text drop caps />Plain-text drop caps can be achieved with just a few lines of CSS. Until Web typography advances, and the @font-face standard becomes more widely supported, this is probably the easiest way to achieve drop caps. href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dropcaps.htm">See demo.

class="showcase"> href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dropcaps.htm"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_g.gif" width="500" height="92" alt="Article 1 G in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Here is the CSS:

.dropCap {
	float: left;
	font-size: 5em;
	line-height: 0.9em;
	padding: 0 5px 0 0;
	font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
}

To jazz up your plain text, check out the following tutorials on enhancement:

href="http://line25.com/tutorials/create-a-letterpress-effect-with-css-text-shadow">Create a Letterpress Effect with CSS Text-Shadow
href="http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css-gradient-text-effect/">CSS Gradient Text Effect

Text-replacement drop caps />Here, we are simply substituting an image for a letter, using a combination of text-indent and background image. href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dropcaps2.htm">See demo.

class="showcase"> href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dropcaps2.htm"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_h.gif" alt="Article 1 H in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Here is the CSS:

.dropCap {
	text-indent: -99999px;
	background: url(drop_cap_e.gif) no-repeat left 5px;
	height: 50px; width: 55px;
	float: left;
	display: block;
}

While this technique is perfect for Jason’s post (because he uses only one drop cap), if you plan to use multiple drop caps, you should look into using href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/27/the-mystery-of-css-sprites-techniques-tools-and-tutorials/">CSS sprites. href="http://www.markboulton.co.uk/">Mark Boulton offers a great example of this technique.

jQuery-based Drop Caps />A few years ago, href="http://www.karlswedberg.com/">Karl Swedberg of href="http://www.learningjquery.com/">LearningjQuery.com introduced an awesome way to incorporate drop caps using jQuery. Please notice that using jQuery for presentational purposes may be not a good idea and contradicts the strict separation between the presentation and behaviour layers, but it does solve the problem nevertheless. You may want to check out Karl Swedberg’s href="http://plugins.learningjquery.com/fancyletter/">drop-cap plugin that does a better job of keeping the presentation and behavior layers separate by simply wrapping a span around the first letter (with appropriate classes). That way you can style the letter however you like with CSS. Also check out the tutorials below:

class="showcase"> href="http://www.learningjquery.com/2006/09/fancy-drop-cap-part-1"> width="500" height="163" src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_e.gif" alt="Article 1 E in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

href="http://www.learningjquery.com/2006/09/fancy-drop-cap-part-1">Fancy Drop Cap – Part 1
href="http://www.learningjquery.com/2006/10/fancy-drop-cap-part-2">Fancy Drop Cap – Part 2
href="http://www.learningjquery.com/2006/12/multiple-fancy-drop-caps">Multiple Fancy Drop Caps

3. Footnotes

Footnotes are another interesting part of Jason’s post. The red stripe that bleeds across the page really accents the footnotes well here.

That bleeding red stripe can be achieved by nesting two DIV tags: the parent DIV, which contains a repeating background image (positioned at the bottom), and a second DIV, which is the actual fixed container where the content lies. This way, the red stripe follows the end of the content and aligns perfectly with the footnotes.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_1_f.jpg" width="500" height="408" alt="Article 1 F in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

3. Text Flow

Like Jason Santa Maria, href="http://dustincurtis.com/a-tour-of-my-brain.html">Dustin Curtis has his own way of giving each post a unique style. In the example below, you can see the interesting way in which the text flows down the page beside the pictures of the MRI. This technique is quite simple to do and is a good use of relative positioning.

How is this done? The text flow seen in Dustin’s design can be achieved by giving each text block a relative position, a fixed width and fixed coordinates. His post has a mix of href="http://dustincurtis.com/images/brain/brains.jpg">large backgrounds, text replacement and relatively positioned text blocks.

class="showcase"> href="http://dustincurtis.com/a-tour-of-my-brain.html"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/brain.jpg" width="500" height="398" alt="Brain in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Sample HTML:

<p class="small"
	style=" position: relative;top: 260px;width: 430px;left: 290px;">
		<strong>At its core, it is the "artful" hemisphere.</strong> Abstract thinking, intonation
		and rhythm of language, artistic ability, and the perception of joy from music are centered here.
		The right hemisphere specializes in thinking about big picture ideas and overarching themes holistically
		instead of linearly.
</p>

Although inline styles are typically not recommended, this would be a rare exception. Create a global class name for the default styling of all text blocks (margin, padding, text size, color, etc.), and use inline styling for the page-specific design (coordinates, width, etc.). href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/textflow.htm">See demo.

class="showcase"> href="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/textflow.htm"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_3_b.gif" width="500" height="300" alt="Article 3 B in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

CSS:

.textflow {
	font-size: 1.2em;
	color: #2d2d2d;
	margin: 20px 0;
	padding: 5px 0;
	position: relative;
}

HTML:

<div class="textflow" style="width:300px; left: 680px;">
  <p>Ad, natu virtus, ut ea, tristique aptent illum iustum abigo ad vulputate gravis melior quae.</p>
</div>

CSS positioning tutorials:

href="http://www.w3schools.com/Css/css_positioning.asp">CSS Positioning
href="http://css-tricks.com/absolute-relative-fixed-positioining-how-do-they-differ/">Absolute, Relative, Fixed Positioning: How Do They Differ?
href="http://thecssblog.com/tutorials/stopping-the-css-positioning-panic-part-1/">Stopping the CSS positioning panic (Part 1)
href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/05/mastering-css-coding-getting-started/#CSS-Basics7">Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started

4. Combo Carousel Breakdown

Over at href="http://technikwuerze.de/das-team/#teammod_dm">Technikwürze, we have found a carousel with a combination of animation effects. This is no ordinary carousel. For this example, rather than go over specific techniques, we’ll discuss the logic behind this unique carousel.

href="http://technikwuerze.de/das-team/#teammod_dm"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/combo2.jpg" width="500" height="352" alt="Combo2 in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

How is this done? As you can see, when clicking on a member’s thumbnail, three primary animations are triggered:

The member bio slides in horizontally,
The profile image slides in vertically,
The grid of member photos updates, and the height of the container adjusts.

To begin, the full member profiles are floated so that they appear side by side. We use overflow: hidden; to mask the non-active profiles. Here is a visual demo of this carousel’s logic:

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_5_default.gif" width="500" height="140" alt="Article 5 Default in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

1. Horizontal animation />Each time a thumbnail is clicked, jQuery calculates how far the profiles need to slide over. This is the classic href="http://zendold.lojcomm.com.br/icarousel/example6.asp">horizontal-sliding carousel effect.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_5_b.gif" width="500" height="166" alt="Article 5 B in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

2. Vertical animation />Once the active profile slides into position, the image for the profile slides down. To begin, all profile images are position -190px above the frame. When jQuery detects that the horizontal animation has been triggered, it slides the profile image down.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_5_c.gif" width="500" height="231" alt="Article 5 C in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

3. Vertical animation />During the transition to the active profile, its height is calculated and the container is adjusted. This way, the container stays snug and does not leave any excess white space at the bottom.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_5_d.gif" width="500" height="163" alt="Article 5 D in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

Carousel tutorials and plug-ins:

href="http://jqueryfordesigners.com/jquery-infinite-carousel/">jQuery Infinite Carousel
href="http://www.queness.com/post/923/create-a-simple-infinite-carousel-with-jquery">Create a Simple Infinite Carousel with jQuery
href="http://woork.blogspot.com/2009/05/7-powerful-image-carousels-for-web.html">Create a Simple Infinite Carousel with jQuery
href="http://www.ndoherty.biz/demos/coda-slider/1.1.1/#5">Coda-Slider

Graceful Degradation

The team at Technikwürze also implemented a fall-back option for this carousel. With a smart use of CSS, it crafted this page so that anything JavaScript-driven is tucked away. The resulting page is clean and accessible to all users.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/carousel_fallback.jpg" width="500" height="201" alt="Carousel Fallback in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

5. Beautiful Typographic CSS-Based Ratings

Over at href="http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/getting-started-with-google-wave-an-early-look/#summary">Web Appstorm, we have an interesting way of showing ratings with CSS. This CSS-based system can be achieved using absolute positioning and an image of the maximum rating.

class="showcase"> href="http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/getting-started-with-google-wave-an-early-look/#summary"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/score.jpg" alt="Score in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" width="550" height="305" />

class="showcase"> href="http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/getting-started-with-google-wave-an-early-look/#summary"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_4_a.gif" width="500" height="147" alt="Article 4 A in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

How is this done? Here is the HTML and CSS:

<span class="the_score">8</span>
<img class="ten" src="http://web.appstorm.net/wp-content/themes/appstorm_v2/images/ten.gif" alt="">

.tabdiv .the_score {
	font-family: "Myriad Pro", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size: 110px;
	line-height: 110px;
	font-weight: bold;
	position: absolute;
	top: 30px;
	right: 100px;
	color: #262626;
	text-align: center;
	letter-spacing: -17px;
}
.tabdiv .ten {
	position: absolute;
	top: 80px;
	right: 45px;
}

Alternative Solution

If you would like the maximum rating to vary, you can achieve this effect using the following alternative method.

class="showcase"> src="http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/article_4_b.gif" alt="Article 4 B in 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers" />

HTML:

<div class="ratingblock">
	<span class="rating">8</span>
	<span class="max">10</span>
</div>

CSS:

As you can see, .max is absolute positioned, has a transparent background and is layered above .rating. That way, if you need to adjust the maximum rating, you can do so without modifying any images.

.ratingblock{
	position: relative;
	height: 100px;
}
.ratingblock .rating {
	font-size: 8em;
	padding: 0 5px;
}
.ratingblock .max{
	display: block;
	background: url(rating_bg.gif) no-repeat;
	position: absolute;
	top: 0; left: 0;
	font-size: 5em;
	width: 50px;
	height: 60px;
	padding: 40px 0 0 50px;
}

Final Thoughts

By examining the techniques others have used to achieve unique and inspirational results, we expand our foundation in Web design. It’s a great way to learn and push ourselves to ever-higher levels. Stay hungry and keep learning!

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© Soh Tanaka for href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com">Smashing Magazine, 2009. | href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Permalink | href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/#comments">63 comments | title="Bookmark in del.icio.us" href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/&title=5%20Useful%20Coding%20Solutions%20For%20Designers%20And%20Developers">Add to del.icio.us | title="Bookmark in Digg" href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Digg this | title="Stumble on StumbleUpon" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Stumble on StumbleUpon! | title="Tweet us!" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=@tweetmeme%20@smashingmag%20Reading%20'5%20Useful%20Coding%20Solutions%20For%20Designers%20And%20Developers'%20http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Tweet it! | title="Bookmark in Reddit" href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/23/6-useful-coding-solutions-for-designers-and-developers/">Submit to Reddit | href="http://forum.smashingmagazine.com/">Forum Smashing Magazine
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My Friends Are The Best

Confirmation Bias

Choosing Sides

Where Do We Go From Here?

Get to Know People

Play In a Different Park

When In Doubt, Ask

Open Your Circle

Traffic Statistics from 2009

11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons We Learned in 2009

Traffic Statistics from 2009

11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons We Learned in 2009

#1 – Hacker News

#2 – A VC

#3 – Chris Dixon

#4 – Techmeme

#5 – Answers On Startups

#6 – Daring Fireball

#7 – Steve Blank

#8 – NYTimes Most Emailed

#9 - Venture Hacks

#10 – Twittersphere

#1 – Hacker News

#2 – A VC

#3 – Chris Dixon

#4 – Techmeme

#5 – Answers On Startups

#6 – Daring Fireball

#7 – Steve Blank

#8 – NYTimes Most Emailed

#9 - Venture Hacks

#10 – Twittersphere

#1 – This Real-Time Search Thing is Outta Here

#2 – Twitter’s "Link Graph" is the Real Deal

#3 – Personalized Search is Here to Stay

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic

#1 – This Real-Time Search Thing is Outta Here

#2 – Twitter’s "Link Graph" is the Real Deal

#3 – Personalized Search is Here to Stay

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic

1. Designing a Slick CSS Timeline

2. Custom Page Styling, CSS Drop Caps and Footnotes

1. Custom Page Styling in WordPress

2. Creating Drop Caps

3. Footnotes

3. Text Flow

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5. Beautiful Typographic CSS-Based Ratings

Alternative Solution

Final Thoughts

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