<p>"Clients are increasingly looking for evidence on the effectiveness of their website content" ... you nailed it. </p> <p>I think it goes further and can be a useful way to measure the effectiveness of freelancers, topics, and strategies. Though I wish every campaign strategy worked as planned, the reality is that SEO and digital marketing is about setting up tests.</p> <p>I have worked at companies that considered Marketing to be a "soft science." I think tools like Google Analytics and Moz Pro make it less soft and more science. </p>

<p>Awesome! Thanks Pratibha. If you like these step-by-step guides, consider checking out our Moz Training classes. They are instructor-led webinars that allow you to ask questions. We have a lot of fun and most folks really enjoy the experience. </p>

<p>Hey Kevin. Great question.</p> <p>I wish I could give you a specific depth or session duration figure to use a rule-of-thumb, but when I am doing research on a site, I will usually just look for two things with depth: 1) Anything longer than 15 seconds, and 2) anything in the top 25th percentile. These are just guides to help me discover generally what people find valuable. The reason I use 15-seconds is because I assume that anyone who actually reads a page will need to spend at least that long on it to actually read and digest the content. I am sure there are articles out there that can give a better number, but 15 seconds seems reasonable to me. </p> <p>I then look at stand-out content ... what is really generating the longest duration overall? The trick here is that sometimes duration will be thrown off by people leaving a browser window open. </p> <p>It is subjective for sure. I would love to hear how other folks do it, but the main point is: short duration is either bots or someone not finding value. And whwn I see large page depth with microscopic duration... I just assume it is bots. </p> <p>In regards to other metrics, I tend to focus on new users. With my clients, growth in users was always a goal because they tended to be new to SEO. So I wanted to measure the impact of new eyeballs on their content. </p> <p>Hope that helps! Would love to hear from others about how they determine "good" duration. </p>

<p>Thanks for the comment and I hope you find this series helpful. Any topics you want to learn more about? Post it in the comments. I read all of them! Would love to develop more content that meets your needs. </p>

<p>Thanks Brendon! Glad you found it useful!</p>

<p>Thanks for the comment Mihali! Appreciate it. </p>

<p>Totally. At both SMX and MozCon this year we saw a lot of call tracking companies. I was really impressed with the technology and certainly think it is a great idea for companies that rely on phone calls for leads. Tracking that back is always a challenge. Good call! (pun intended) </p>

<p>Agreed! I love and advocate for the use of Google Tag Manager. A really powerful tool. Last year at MozCon there was a presentation on GTM and it was incredible how much capability there is beyond the basics. </p>

<p>Thanks Igor. Glad you find them valuable. </p>

<p>Thanks Nicholas! Glad the article was helpful. Share your neat tips &amp; tricks with me as you find them. Always happy to hear about what works: @thegrowthpilot or #MozAcademy on Twitter. </p>

<p>Thanks for the tips, Javier! </p>

<p>Ah yes... common challenge. I worked with industrial products that had very high character counts. One way I approached this was trying to identify the operative keyword that was generating results (e.g. if I take out part of this search query, do the remaining words still deliver similar results aligned with my desired search intent?). Or another thing I would try is to hunt for ranking opportunities further up the buyer journey funnel ... toward things that are less product specific and more problem specific. </p> <p>Thanks for the comment!</p>

<p>Yeah! What I love about this as well is that you can do a little parlor trick with it. Like, sitting in front of a client or prospect, you can pull out your phone and ask them to come up with a question that their target user might ask (I did this yesterday at a MeetUp).</p> <p>Then you can show them the relationships between "People Also Ask" and the Featured Snippets ... and start drilling into the People Also Ask boxes while explaining the concept of contextual search. It really makes a somewhat complicated concept more tangible. </p> <p>Glad you liked the post! Thanks for the comment! </p>

<p>I am not 100% sure who domesticated who in the cat-human relationship. I have two. And that is about 1.5 too many cats for any one household. </p> <p>Glad you found the post helpful. I love shortcuts and learning from things on the search page. Thanks for sharing!</p>

<p>I'm all about applied SEO, Sreeram. Keep an eye out for more of these Next Level blog posts. They will be focused on applied SEO tactics. Also consider taking a look at moz.com/training for Moz classes that also focus on applying tools and developing scalable processes. </p>

<p>Thanks Dipesh! </p>

<p>Hey Rachel! </p> <p>We just set up a new seminar specifically for Content Writers and Editors. If you love tips &amp; tricks about how to maximize your content for SEO, might be worth checking out:</p> <p><a href="http://try.moz.com/seo-for-content-writers/" rel="nofollow">SEO for Content Writers</a></p> <p>Thanks for the comment! </p>

<p>Removing a 3-letter abbreviation from your day may be the best thing I have ever done for someone. Glad you found the article helpful! </p>

<p>Thanks! </p>

<p>Thanks Paola! </p> <p>Not sure if you saw this post as well. A quick way to come up with blog topic ideas:</p> <p><a href="https://moz.com/blog/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds" rel="nofollow">Generate 100+ Blog Topic Ideas in Seconds</a> </p>

<p>Yeah. Awesome. Glad it was helpful. You may have seen posts by Glenn Gabe (<a href="https://twitter.com/glenngabe" rel="nofollow">@glenngabe</a>) on twitter about the May 16/ May 17 ranking disruptions that appear to be targeting low-quality content. I'd follow that guy if you're not already doing so ... just to keep up to date on his commentary. Quality content appears to be something that will continue to get more and more scrutiny, and avoiding thin content is one way to improve that factor. Not sure if you saw it, but we have a "Thin Content" issue alert in the new Site Crawler. I'd check that out. Pretty neat. </p>

<p>Yeah, the Featured Snippets are really a game changer in my opinion. Not only do they change the competitive landscape I find that they are a way to "peer into" the search algorithm to identify how it views topics. I have top chalk a lot of my intrigue up to Britney Muller, the SEO here at Moz. She wrote an article recently about the People Also Ask boxes and it really got me exploring. If you have some time, check out Britney's posts. She's full of insight. </p>

<p>Glad you thought it was helpful, Viral. Thanks for commenting!</p>

<p>Cool, Cory. Sounds similar to the Moz Pro feature called "On-Page Content Suggestions" (formerly "Related Topics") that helps you identify contextually similar keywords based on pages ranking elsewhere in the SERP. Pretty neat tool. I particularly like the feature because it is available in Mozbar ... so any page I'm on I can just pop open Mozbar and then see related keywords to the topic. Thanks!</p>

<p>Sweet! Nice tip! Thanks for sharing that, Igor. </p> <p>I love learning about new tools. </p>

<p>Hey Kennoath,</p> <p>Thanks for the comment and great question. There have been some recent articles on Moz and elsewhere that discuss "de-indexing" strategies. The challenge with letting older / vintage pages compete with new pages, from my understanding, is that you dilute somewhat the ability for the search engines to identify the content you want to be ranking. De-indexing might be part of the answer. I'd Google it and see if that solution fits your need. </p>

<p>I love this, Nick</p>

<p>Thanks Iban.</p> <p>I think the main thing is to be deliberate with your proposal analysis. Get good at doing it fast, but be sure to learn the client so you set expectations appropriately. It seems the focusing on an industry vertical is one good way to help with scaling your agency business. That helps to keep each new client's customer persona somewhat more familiar than offering services to a large variety of businesses and customer types. </p> <p>I know it is tough to share a lot of details during a proposal phase, but I think it is a risk worth taking. </p>

<p>Nice! Thanks for sharing this Shubham. You should write a blog about it! </p>

<p>Awesome. Yes, I think the best answer for anyone jumping into SEO as part of their service can learn from your experience. Starting with a Site Audit is really a great way of doing it. I 100% agree that getting compensated for the work is important. And maybe the experience of doing Site Audits with previous clients makes it so you can do them faster. Thanks for sharing your experience!</p>

<p>Hey Brendon,</p> <p>Great question. SEO concepts transcend any one software platform. We use a mix of tools including Google Analytics, Moz Pro, Search Console, and others. And I encourage participants to share their own tools and processes. That is what I love about these classes ... it is not just a video. The participants and encouraged to share their experiences and insights. </p> <p>Hope that helps!</p>

<p>Hey Aaron! </p> <p>We have totally revamped the classes! Updated, polished, and they even have that new webinar smell. </p> <p>That said, if it's about managing your annual training budget, I think we'd all love to see you at Mozcon.</p> <p>Maybe choose one SEO bootcamp, see what you think, and then make the call on your additional spend. </p>

<p>Glad it was helpful, David! </p> <p>If you want a full presentation on the Mozbar features, take a look at the recent webinar walkthrough here:</p> <p><a href="https://seomoz.wistia.com/medias/vioyqrvwxm" rel="nofollow">https://seomoz.wistia.com/medias/vioyqrvwxm</a></p> <p>And if your team is interested in more helpful tips and tricks, there is a lot of that in the SEO training classes we provide:</p> <p><a href="http://moz.com/training" rel="nofollow">moz.com/training</a></p> <p>Thanks for the comment!</p>

<p>Thanks Pratibha! </p> <p>I also wrote this one a few months ago that might be interesting for you:</p> <p><a href="https://moz.com/blog/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds" rel="nofollow">https://moz.com/blog/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas...</a></p> <p>If you and your team are interested in really practical ways to use the Moz tools, I also recommend taking a look at the training page. We have some classes there that focus on implementing SEO. Would love you thoughts on what we can offer to help you advance your skills:</p> <p><a href="https://moz.com/training" rel="nofollow">https://moz.com/training</a></p> <p>Have a great day!</p>

<p>Thought this article is a little dated, it covers some best practices related to eCommerce product pages that I think still hold true. </p> <p><a href="https://moz.com/blog/perfecting-onpage-optimization-for-ecommerce-websites" rel="nofollow">https://moz.com/blog/perfecting-onpage-optimizatio...</a><br /></p> <p>I think the underlying goal is to have unique content on the pages that provide clarity to the person conducting a search. Duplicate content errors can be a common issue when using templates or similar content across pages. </p> <p>Also, for page titles and meta descriptions in particular, having unique content that explains what is on the page is super important. These attributes are essentially ad copy to entice someone to click on your link. Having a concise, value-driven message that clearly states what a person is going to find on the other side of the link is generally a best practice. That will often mean having variants, at least, of the same target keyword. </p> <p>Hope that helps! </p> <p><br /></p>

<p>Perfect! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.</p>

<p>Thanks! Glad it was helpful.</p>

<p>Thanks Cornel. Glad it was helpful.</p> <p>I'd definitely sign up for a Moz Pro free trial. You get 30 days to try out the tools and can cancel at any time.</p> <p>If you do sign up, make sure to take a free 1x1 walkthrough with one of the Onboarding Specialists. It is a great way of learning the features most useful for your business. After you sign up for a trial, you get an email with a link to sign up for the walkthrough. </p> <p>I'd also suggest keeping an eye on the moz.com/training page. There are some new classes coming that will be focused on building your strategy. </p> <p>Hope those resources help!</p>

<p>Thanks Brendon! I have definitely found that the Related Topics feature in the Page Optimization Moz Pro campaign tool (and now.. MozBar) is super helpful. Once you start playing around with it, I think you'll find that it works it's way into your regular processes. </p> <p>I think my next most used feature in MozBar is to review my client's competitor's sites and see how optimized their pages are. If the competitive landscape appears to have relatively low penetration of SEO best practices, I take note of that. It helps to identify what kind of strategies and responses I can expect for certain keywords. </p> <p>And the third most common way I use MozBar is to review Page Authority and Inbound Link counts for the top 3-5 results in a SERP. Another great competitive analysis tool when trying to find niches that will make ranking easier. </p>

<p>I love Keyword Explorer, Gyorgy. I use the Suggestions tool for everything. For anyone coming up with product names or domain ideas for a new site, Keyword Explorer is such a great tool for brainstorming.</p>

<p>That's great advice, Zulver. I use Google Trends as well to come up with broad terms for a given topic. It is always amazing to see the difference in search volume for relatively small variations in keywords. I really like takingthings back to the Search Result page. I think identifying the alignment between search intent and the search results page is hugely important. </p>

<p>Oh no! If you're ever experiencing with any Moz product, I strongly recommend hitting up our help team. Let them know you're experiencing an issue and they can look into it. </p>

<p>Thanks Sergio. Glad the information could be helpful. </p>

<p>Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Bhushan! </p>

<p>Kane, this is awesome:</p> <p>"Start by looking at customer reviews and feedback you’ve collected (and those of your main competitors as well) to pick out common words and phrases that satisfied customers are using. From here, you can tie that customer language back into your own descriptions."</p> <p>Great way to come up with the natural language for your buyer personas. </p>

<p>Hey Pravin!</p> <p>Interesting way of brining existing content performance into the analysis of blog titles. I use the SERP Analysis feature of Keyword Explorer to do the same kind of thing. I like to see what is ranking high in the search results, what words are used in the titles, and maybe most importantly, do the results for this title actually align with the service or product I offer? </p> <p>I've used BuzzSumo in the past as well to get some of these metrics, but as a content idea generator, I think what you have is definitely worth bookmarking and folding into the content development process. </p> <p>Thanks for sharing that!</p>

<p>Thanks Luis!</p>

<p>Great idea, Stephen. I think combining the two tools would make for some great insights. </p> <p>For both tools it's amazing what you can discover about people's <em>general</em> questions on a topic. Such as, are they most concerned with price? Quality? Availability? Etc. </p> <p>By plugging the Answer the Public results into Keyword Explorer (which can be done via .csv upload into a List), you can get some good details on volume and difficulty scores. <br /></p> <p>Result: Blog title ideas for dayzzzzzzz. </p>

<p>I've had the same experience. I think many similar tools utilize the same "system." My sense is that many title generator tools are developed as a way of converting a person on their site rather than providing the kinds of high-value topics that can be generated in <a href="https://moz.com/explorer" rel="nofollow">Keyword Explorer</a>. </p> <p>I find domain name generators follow the same pattern. I use the Keyword Explorer Suggestions tool for this purpose as well. Doing some analysis around word combinations to come up with moderate volume and low difficulty names helps augment the normal (sometimes discouraging) process of coming up with available domains. </p> <p><br /></p> <p><br /></p>

<p>I am glad it was helpful! </p> <p>Keyword Explorer has some great features. Take a look at this Whiteboard Friday by Rand: <a href="https://moz.com/blog/discovering-prioritizing-best-keywords-whiteboard-friday" rel="nofollow">A Step-by-Step Process for Discovering and Prioritizing The Best Keywords</a></p> <p>I think it gives some great context for how some of the features in Keyword Explorer were developed. </p>

<p>Thanks Vijay! </p> <p>Also works great for social post titles. The thing I like best about this method is being able to see search volume associated with each option. That can allow a person to prioritize their titles and target those with a good chance og being searched. </p>