Here at Distilled NY we’ve been ruing a hiring cycle, and it’s really brought front and center for me the key elements that make a digital marketing (and specifically SEO) candidate stand out from the crowd. So I wanted to share a few things I’ve leaed in the process. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to tackle this topic from two angles (with 5 points on each, in true "10 Things I’ve Leaed…" style): Part I: 5 attributes I now look for in any new analyst or consultant hire (and what you as an employer might want to think about before making someone an offer), and Part II: 5 things to consider as a job seeker if you’re applying for a role at a company like Distilled. I should also note that this post is based on my own personal approach and viewpoint, rather than representing any kind of official Distilled documentation. What I look for in a new SEO hire At Distilled, we hire for SEO consultants at two levels — analyst (entry-level) and consultant (3+ years e

MozCon is fast approaching us! On September 12-14—just two weeks away—1,400 online marketers will descend on Seattle, ready to lea about SEO, content, Google Tag Manager, conversion rate optimization, and so much more. We've got fewer than 60 tickets left, so grab yours now. Buy your MozCon 2016 ticket! If you haven't done so, check out all the leaing! This post is geared toward the things you can do when MozCon sessions aren't happening. Places you'll want to go as recommended by Mozzers While you're in Seattle, we want to make sure you have a fabulous time. Seattle in September is beautiful. It's still suy outside, and it's the time of year people come to Seattle and then want to move here. So we've complied a list of great activities and restaurants: Sights Gasworks Park "Incredible views of the city, float planes landing overhead, Space Needle in the background, Ivar's Clam Chowder down the street, bikes all over the place." — Brian Childs Volunteer Park "This is my f

‘Baacle SEO’ was a term first popularized by Will Scott in 2011 to describe the process of attaching your business to existing high-ranking entities (like major directories) and then promoting them as a means of dominating search engine results for desired terms. Today, we’re going to take that novel concept in a different direction, with the goal of increasing brand awareness for single, multi-location, and enterprise local businesses by latching onto existing influences in any given community. Up ahead: simple tips for interpreting your city, a downloadable community awareness spreadsheet, and real-world examples for your inspiration! Before we dive in, take a look at these two eye-opening statistics: “73% of people care about the company, not just the product, when they’re making purchasing decisions.”– BBMG “63% of global consumers would buy from a company they consider to be authentic, over and above competitors.”– Cohn & Wolfe The Cohn & Wolfe su

Knowing what content to create is one of a marketer's most difficult jobs. It's all too easy to imagine your target audience and what they already appreciate, then create more of that. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses why that's a bit short-sighted, and we should have a broader vision. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This one comes to us via submission from email. This is a question from Michael. No other details given, which is totally fine, Michael. So he wanted to know, since he's working on a content strategy, working on a new blog and having conversations with his manager and his team about, "Hey, should we be writing only extremely focused, narrowly focused content for our specific target audience, or should we be trying to branch out and broaden so that we can reach a bigger audience or a new audience?"I think this is a fair q

There sure is a lot of interest in SEO ranking factors: There have been major studies done on this, notably by both Moz and Searchmetrics. These are groundbreaking pieces of research, and if you're serious about SEO, you need to understand what these studies say. That said, these are too complex for most organizations to deal with. They need a simpler way of looking at things. At Stone Temple Consulting (STC) we deal with many different types of organizations, including some of the world's largest companies, and some of the highest-traffic websites in the world. For most of these companies, understanding that there are 200+ ranking factors does more harm than good. Why, you ask? So many people I talk to are looking for a silver bullet. They want to hear that they should only change their heading tags on the second Tuesday of every month, except during leap years, when they should do it on the first Tuesday, except in February when they should change it on the third Monday. These distr

When first looking to offer something new, most businesses fall in line with one of two schools of thought: Build it inteally Purchase or outsource it There are pros and cons to both sides of the coin. Here’s an example: Say you’re looking to expand the selection of products your company sells. Building a new offering in-house would allow you complete control over the size and shape of the new product. The drawback? Building it yourself usually takes significant inteal resources and time. If, instead, you chose to purchase a product from another organization (let’s call them Acme Corp) and whitelabel it — or maybe even purchase Acme Corp itself — you’ll be able to go to market sooner, but you’ll almost certainly have less control over the product you’re offering. The idea of “build inteally” or “purchase exteally” doesn’t just apply to products — it also includes inteal programs like market research, sales strategy development, and even professiona

At first glance, local links and local citations might seem uecessary for non-local websites. On a closer look, however, there are strong underlying benefits to gaining those local votes of confidence that could prove invaluable for everyone. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains why all sites should consider chasing local links and citations, suggesting a few different ways to discover opportunities in your areas of focus. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to talk about why websites — every website, not just local websites — should be thinking about tactics and a strategy to get local listings and local citations.Now, this might sound counterintuitive. I've actually encountered a lot of folks — especially online-only businesses or even blended online and local businesses — who think, "Are local links really

Google is constantly testing new design elements, but over the past few months they've been testing a change that, while it might seem small on the surface, represents a major philosophical shift. The screenshots in this post were all captured on live SERPs but appear to be tests and have not rolled out permanently. Here's an example of the basic change: Notice how each result (ads and organic) is wrapped in a container and visually separated on a gray background. These containers are called "cards" in Google's veacular, and they're important, but we'll get to that. Why should we care about a few borders and a background? Shift #1: Mobile-first design We've known for over two years that Google was shifting to a mobile-first design philosophy. Earlier this year, Google removed ads from the right-hand column. While this change was partially due to performance, I believe that a big part

We’re all well aware that the tides have shifted in SEO. Building links for the sake of building links is no longer the best strategy. We’ve all heard the gospel of great content being preached: "Just create great content, and the links will naturally come." While this may be true for brands with existing followings, it’s often a very different story for most SMBs. The fact of the matter is that if a brand lacks social presence and followers, it may get more eyeballs on its great content by printing a copy, and stapling it to a tree. For that reason, you need to pay to get that great content in front of the eyes that are most likely to share/blog/mention it. I’m going to show you how to do this using LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn, the resume site? "LinkedIn?", you say? "Why would I share content on LinkedIn?", you ask? Very good question! Everyone’s favorite professional social networ

From Featured Snippets to In-depth Articles to Knowledge Panels, Google SERP features have remade the search marketing landscape. After three years of plaing and many months of work, I'm thrilled to aounce the launch of advanced SERP feature tracking in Moz Pro, available immediately to all customers! Using the most comprehensive data set on the market, Moz Pro now provides advanced analysis of the 16 features listed below: Try it now under the [Rankings] tab within any campaign (see screenshot below), or read on for a walk-through of the new features. New to Moz Pro? Take a free 30-day trial! Stage 1: Awareness At MozCon 2013, I gave a talk called Beyond 10 Blue Links, documenting the diversity of Google features surrounding organic results. Many of us at Moz felt strongly that the world of SERP features could have a profound impact on search marketers, and so we started to catal