How to do Keyword Research in 90 Minutes

Posted by Jeremy_Gottlieb

Everyone's been in the position where there's a million and one things going on, but a client (or you) still requires top-notch keyword research. So something needs to get done in a pinch. Searching around the internet and learning more about the trendiest aspects of keyword research (because let's face it, either it's been a while since you last did it or it's your first time doing it) can take a ton of time. There are literally millions of things you could be reading about it; actually 15.4 million if we want to be precise.

Unfortunately, no one has time to sift through 15,400,000 results and identify which ones are timely, relevant, or even correct. That's why I set restrictions so I could stick to a regimented, specific and effective schedule for identifying and presenting the most effective keywords for organic search, no matter who the client is.

We begin this case study with a fictitious client, Joey Antipodean, who lives in Manhattan and really loves kangaroos. In fact, he loves them so much he decided to make a website, www.kangaroosnyc.com (not real and available for sale on GoDaddy) for other admirers of this wonderful marsupial to ask questions, share stories and have a vibrant, loyal community.

Using the Google suite of tools (40 minutes)

Let's assume Joey has properly set up Google Analytics (GA) and Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). This is a great place to begin, as we can start to see which pages are attracting the most organic traffic and for which terms. Since Google stopped displaying its keywords in GA and replaced them with "not provided," utilizing GA for keyword research involves a bit of educated guesswork. Step by step, this is what we'll do:

1. Enter into Joey's GA account and click on "Acquisition" in the left-hand navigation
2. Under "Acquisition", click on "Source/Medium"
3. In the primary data on the page, click on "google / organic" (Figure 1)
4. Click on "Secondary Dimension" and under "Behavior" you will find "Landing Page" (Figure 2)

(Figure 1)

(Figure 2)

What we are left with are the top landing pages (as opposed to destination pages, which are for internal search), and from here we can infer which keywords and their variants are driving traffic to the site. We can also assume based on the content of these pages what the users' intent is and at what point in the conversion funnel they are.

But we can get even more specific. GWT allows us to see specific data on search queries, impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position on the page. Once again, we'll find Joey's account, and this time we'll click on "Search Traffic" in the left-hand navigation, which will reveal anchor text for "Search Queries". Clicking on "Search Queries" will yield the treasure trove of information mentioned earlier that can be easily sorted and/or downloaded. Filters can be played with to remove branded traffic and voila, all that remains is pure, unbranded search queries actually used by real, live people to at least see SERPs for www.kangaroosnyc.com.

We can even click on the tab for "Top pages" instead of "Top queries," and we can see once again the top pages by organic search. What is different about this than the GA list of URLs is that by clicking on the individual URLs, GWT will actually provide a list of keywords used to generate impressions and clicks. Pretty great, right?

Let's begin to place some of the fictitious keywords we found in the fictitious GA and GWT accounts for Joey's site into a Google Docs spreadsheet. In a bit, we'll get back to these and attach a number of monthly searches to them. Now we know what we're dealing with and we can move on to improving our selection of keywords. One of my favorite tools is Google Keyword Planner (GKP), and while it is by no means perfect, it certainly is a great place to start.

In GKP, we'll click on "Search for new keyword and ad group ideas" and enter "kangaroos" into the box as our product or service. We can leave the rest of this empty for now, though there are many other ways to successfully leverage the other boxes on this page for keyword research.

After we click on "Get ideas" at the bottom of the page, the magic begins to happen. Click on "Avg. monthly searches" to sort the queries from most sought-after to least.

Clicking on the top ad group, "Kangaroo", we see mostly short-tail keywords that receive the lion's share of the search queries, but towards the bottom we see a few long-tail queries like "where do kangaroos live" that receive 1,000 searches per month. Being realistic and knowing the audience of our site, we should focus on more long-tail queries. This will grant us a better chance of competing in the SERPs due to lesser competition from sites like National Geographic, Wikipedia, and zoos among others.

Another relatively unknown Google-provided tool for keyword research is Google Instant. Google keeps track of what people are searching for and as we begin typing a query into the search bar, it will begin to autopopulate the remainder of the query based on what other people are searching for. This is a great tactic for identifying long-tail keywords.

We'll take these keywords as well as the ones we already had (before we began the keyword research) and plug them into the part of GKP that allows us to find the search traffic for specific queries. All we'll need to do is click on "modify search" and click the option for "Get search volume for a list of keywords or group them into ad groups" before loading the box up with the desired keywords.

Assess the reality: To optimize existing pages or make new ones? (15 minutes)

We want to do a quick analysis here to establish where and if we can compete in the SERPs. Are the domains authoritative and strong or relatively weak and unknown? Moz's Open Site Explorer is a fantastic option for checking out the strength of the competition in the SERPs and finding out if we've got a chance on the first page. For the search query "what do kangaroos eat", which gets 2,400 searches per month, the results seem to be fairly easy competition. Of course, our site doesn't actually exist so it's impossible to rank higher than a real site, but the point is that some weaker pages in the SERPs can be overtaken.

We'll need to take the list of keywords that we're accumulating in our Google Doc and sort it in descending order of monthly search volume. From here we can get a better view of synonyms or closely-related keywords and their search volume. From here, it's time to put our work to the test to see the variance in the SERPs for different but related keywords. If we're seeing the same pages show up time and time again for different queries, we can infer that we don't need to place all the different queries on separate pages; we can just leave some out because they will naturally receive organic traffic through Google's advanced understanding of semantic intent.

Lastly, we're going to select our top-performing keywords from our already-existing list of keywords driving traffic to the site as well as the new ones and figure out where they should go. Are the current title tags perfectly optimized for keywords, or do some need tweaking, while others present solid opportunities, but there is no page that exists for them just yet, so a new page should be created? These are the questions we answer now.

Listen to the ideal audience (15 minutes)

What we've done so far is monitor what we think our audience wants and track those results in Google, but we're biased. I think it's time we heard it from the horse's (read: kangaroo's) mouth. Social media is a very powerful tool, but most marketers only think of it as a tool for content dissemination. By using hashtags and keywords, we can find out how people are actually speaking about what interests us. Ideally this will lead us to influencers or people with large followings and judging by what is said, we can figure out what is interesting to the audience that occupies a given niche.

For example, by typing "kangaroo pet" into the Twitter search bar we're able to see that there is indeed demand for these words and largely within the context we want to see, not the action of softly stroking the animal. This post by Ann Smarty details some other forms of social media that can be used to perform keyword research, but in the spirit of sticking to a 90-minute plan, we're only going to focus on Twitter for now.

Searching on Twitter should confirm or give a few ideas that can be passed into GKP in order to add to our list of potential keywords. However, it's worth pointing out that most long-tail queries aren't going to receive enough traffic to justify building out a new evergreen page, but if the topic is talked about on social media, it could very well serve as a good blog post. Evergreen content, for those unfamiliar with it, is content that rarely becomes irrelevant with time as opposed to a timely blog post.

Slightly different than social media and Twitter is the use of forums. The informal nature of these tends to lead to questions and answers actually posed and answered by humans, not indexed by robots and spit out by some algorithm; responses here are usually very detailed and highly relevant to a given question. If a question surfaces in multiple threads or is just genuinely interesting, that could serve as the impetus for a new evergreen page or as a blog post. We've already established that long-tail is going to be better than short-tail keywords for this particular client, so we need to take advantage of Google's advances in semantic search by providing authoritative content that is interesting and provides strong answers to common questions asked by members of the ideal audience.

Wayne Gretzky had a famous quote for what made him such a great hockey player. He said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." If we're metaphorically always skating to where the puck has been rather than where it's going, we're granting other sites the ability to develop authority on a topic before we do. Even if Joey's site does not focus on a small, but growing niche now, by beginning to blog and write about it, by the time that topic does become a part of Joey's main offering or it becomes mainstream, Google very well might recognize the site as an expert because it has been writing about it for a while when no one else was. An example of this could be "how wallabies differ from kangaroos" or "are wallabies legal in the United States as pets".

Demonstrate room for growth (20 Minutes)

So, great, we've done our keyword research and feel proud of the work we've performed, but how do we know Joey Antipodean will care or even take interest? SEOs often find themselves immersed in their own little worlds so sometimes it can be difficult to realize that outsiders care less about semantics or hunches about keywords, and more about data and easily recognizable figures.

An e-commerce site should be able to provide the average order value (AOV) for a transaction, but not every site, Joey's included, measures conversions in terms of dollars. In this case, let's say that www.kangaroosnyc.com is looking for email signups and converts visitors at a 3% rate. We're also going to assume that five of the site's fictitious, non-keyword optimized pages hold the number four spot in the SERPs of Google for a couple of search queries.

Using estimated click-through rate data, like the graph below from a study published by Advanced Web Ranking, we see that the number four spot on average has a click-through rate of 6.97%. Assuming that there are 10,000 impressions for those top five pages in a month, 697 will advance through to the website. Of those 697, only 3% or nearly 21 people will sign up and provide their email.

Read more about this study in Google Organic Click-Through Rates in 2014

This isn't the best we can do. We anticipate that the keywords that we're trying to rank for can eventually land us in the number one position. The same study mentioned above cites that the number one position on Google has a click-through rate of 31.24%. Moving up to the number one spot (just a three spot gain) would earn 3,124 clicks across those same 10,000 impressions, which would yield close to 94 email signups, or 73 more signups with keyword optimization vs. leaving the pages as un-optimized. This is the type of data to be highlighted in a keyword research document. For an e-commerce client, we'd focus on possible future revenue rather than email signups.

The example of Kangaroos NYC and its make-believe traffic and conversion rate is just an example, but the concept holds true for nearly all clients. Find out your client's current click-through and conversion rates and demonstrate how that data compares to known click-through rate for SERPs on the first page. Don't forget, the whole reason for keyword research is to rank as high as possible for terms that drive (qualified) traffic, so being able to show how much room for growth exists makes your cases for implementing changes all the more compelling.

What are your tips and tricks for quick, but effective keyword research?

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

So…Is That Good? The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Benchmarking on Social Media

If I were to tell you that a recent tweet of mine received 20 clicks, what would you think?

Maybe 20 clicks sounds like a lot based on what you’ve found for your own accounts. Maybe 20 clicks sounds rather lean, considering what you know about clickthrough rates of big brands or your most successful posts.

Checking out the raw numbers of your social media stats, free of context, makes it quite hard to draw any concrete conclusions.

Imagine having a way to ...

The post So…Is That Good? The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Benchmarking on Social Media appeared first on Social.

For Writers Only: Secrets to Improving Engagement on Your Content Using Word Pictures (and I Don't Mean Wordle)

Posted by Isla_McKetta

"Picture it."

If you're of a certain generation, those two words can only conjure images of tiny, white-haired Sophia from the Golden Girls about to tell one of her engaging (if somewhat long and irrelevant) stories as she holds her elderly roommates hostage in the kitchen or living room of their pastel-hued Miami home.

Even if you have no idea what I'm talking about, those words should become your writing mantra, because what readers do with your words is take all those letters and turn them into mind pictures. And as the writer, you have control over what those pictures look like and how long your readers mull them over.

According to Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene, reading involves a rich back and forth between the language areas and visual areas of our brains. Although the full extent of that connectivity is not yet known, it's easy to imagine that the more sensory (interesting) information we can include in our writing, the more fully we can engage our readers.

So if you're a writer or content marketer you should be harnessing the illustrative power of words to occupy your readers' minds and keep them interested until they're ready to convert. Here's how to make your words work for you.

Kill clichés

I could have titled this piece "Painting a Picture with Words" but you've heard it. Over and over and over. And I'm going to propose that every time you use a cliché, a puppy dies. 

While that's a bit extreme (at least I hope so because that's a lot of dead puppies and Rocky's having second thoughts about his choice of parents), I hope it will remind you to read over what you've written and see where your attention starts to wander (wandering attention=cliché=one more tragic, senseless death) you get bored. Chances are it's right in the middle of a tired bit of language that used to be a wonderful word picture but has been used and abused to the point that we readers can't even summon the image anymore.

Make up metaphors (and similes)

Did you know that most clichés used to be metaphors? And that we overused them because metaphors are possibly the most powerful tool we have at our disposal for creating word pictures (and, thus, engaging content)? You do now.

By making unexpected comparisons, metaphors and similes force words to perform like a stage mom on a reality show. These comparisons shake our brains awake and force us to pay attention. So apply a whip to your language. Make it dance like a ballerina in a little pink tutu. Give our brains something interesting to sink our teeth into (poor Rocky!), gnaw on, and share with out friends.

Engage the senses

If the goal of all this attention to language is to turn reading into a full brain experience, why not make it a little easier by including sensory information in whatever you're writing? Here are a few examples:

• These tickets are selling so fast we can smell the burning rubber.
• Next to a crumbling cement pillar, our interview subject sits typing on his pristine MacBook Air.
• In a sea of (yelp!) never ending horde of black and gray umbrellas, this red cowboy hat will show the world you own your look.
• Black hat tactics left your SERPs stinking as bad as a garbage strike in late August? Let us help you clear the air by cleaning up those results.

See how those images and experiences continue to unfold and develop in your mind? You have the power to affect your readers the same way—to create an image so powerful it stays with them throughout their busy days. One note of caution, though, sensory information is so strong that you want to be careful when creating potentially negative associations (like that garbage strike stench in the final example).

Leverage superlatives (wisely) and ditch hyperbole

SUPERLATIVES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVEST TOOL YOU CAN USE EVER (until you wear your reader out or lose their trust). Superlatives (think "best," "worst," "hairiest" – any form of the adjective or adverb that is the most exaggerated form of the word) are one of the main problems with clickbait headlines (the other being the failure to deliver on those huge promises).

Speaking of exaggeration, be careful with it in all of its forms. You don't actually have to stop using it, but think of your reader's credence in your copy as a grasshopper handed over by a child. They think it's super special and they want you to as well. If you mistreat that grasshopper by piling exaggerated fact after exaggerated fact on top of it, the grasshopper will be crushed and your reader will not easily forgive you.

So how do you stand out in a crowded field of over-used superlatives and hyperbolic claims? Find the places your products honestly excel and tout those. At Moz we don't have the largest link index in the world. Instead, we have a really high quality link index. I could have obfuscated there and said we have "the best" link index, but by being specific about what we're actually awesome at, we end up attracting customers who want better results instead of more results (and they're happier for it).

Unearth the mystery

One of the keys to piquing your audience's interest is to tap into (poor puppy!) create or find the mystery in what you're writing. I'm not saying your product description will suddenly feature PIs in fedoras (I can dream, though), but figure out what's intriguing or new about what you're talking about. Here are some examples:

• Remember when shortcuts meant a few extra minutes to yourself after school? How will you spend the 15-30 minutes our email management system will save you? We won't tell…
• You don't need to understand how this toilet saves water while flushing so quietly it won't wake the baby, just enjoy a restful night's sleep (and lower water bills)
• Check out this interactive to see what makes our work boots more comfortable than all the rest.

Secrets, surprises, and inside information make readers hunger for more knowledge. Use that power to get your audience excited about the story you're about to tell them.

Don't forget the words around your imagery

Notice how some of these suggestions aren't about the word picture itself, they're about the frame around the picture? I firmly believe that a reader comes to a post with a certain amount of energy. You can waste that energy by soothing them to sleep with boring imagery and clichés, while they try to find something to be interested in. Or you can give them energy by giving them word pictures they can get excited about.

So picture it. You've captured your reader's attention with imagery so engaging they'll remember you after they put down their phone, read their social streams (again), and check their email. They'll come back to your site to read your content again or to share that story they just can't shake.

Good writing isn't easy or fast, but it's worth the time and effort.

Let me help you make word pictures

Editing writing to make it better is actually one of my great pleasures in life, so I'm going to make you an offer here. Leave a sentence or two in the comments that you're having trouble activating, and I'll see what I can do to offer you some suggestions. Pick a cliché you can't get out of your head or a metaphor that needs a little refresh. Give me a little context for the best possible results.

I'll do my best to help the first 50 questions or so (I have to stop somewhere or I'll never write the next blog post in this series), so ask away. I promise no puppies will get hurt in the process. In fact, Rocky's quite happy to be the poster boy for this post—it's the first time we've let him have beach day, ferry day, and all the other spoilings all at once.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Public support high for departing Police Chief Bill Blair: poll

The survey says Blair is leaving the job in April with a high approval rating that could help him if he runs for public office.

Mayor Tory could make traffic crackdown pay: James

If police get rigorous about enforcing rules and collecting fines, it could be very useful to cash-strapped Toronto.

Get to Know Your Audience: 18 Incredibly Useful Market Research Tools

You may have heard it said that understanding your audience on social media is one of the keys to success with social media marketing. (We may have even said it ourselves a time or two!)

Makes a lot of sense. The more you know about your audience, the better you’ll be able to deliver the kind of helpful content and updates they’re interested in.

So what might be the simplest, most efficient ways of understanding an audience?

This is the part where I often ...

The post Get to Know Your Audience: 18 Incredibly Useful Market Research Tools appeared first on Social.

Get to Know the Moz Community Managers

Posted by jennita

At this very moment a spammy comment is being written on the Moz Blog, a tweet is being sent to @Moz, and someone is signing up for the next Mozinar. You'll probably never see any of these happen, and may not realize that just like Newton's third law states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." As each one of these actions occurs, a Moz Community Manager is jumping into a reaction: The spammer is banned, the tweet is answered, and the Mozinar is being prepared.

Charlene, Megan, and Erica showing how much fun Community Managers have :)

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day, or #CMAD as it's come to be known. It's a day to thank the amazing community managers out there who keep all things moving no matter what the day or time. At Moz, we're lucky to have an exceptional team of folks that manages everything from social media posts to handling spammers. It's not always a pretty job, but it's one they take to heart, and have come to live and breathe the role.

Did you know the @Moz Twitter account is handled by 7 different people?
I dare you to try to figure out who's tweeting when.

It's my great honor to introduce and thank each of our community managers, as well as several folks who contribute greatly to the team. They make sure our site isn't overrun with spam, your questions get answered in Q&A, your tweets see replies, and that you have help writing a great post for YouMoz.

Before I dive in, I'd like to give a shout out to all of our Associates, especially Gianluca and Miriam, who help the Community team in a myriad of ways every single day. In order to be fair, I'll introduce each person in terms of how long they've been working on community-related tasks here at Moz.

Keri Morgret - Community Manager

Keri started out as an Associate in early 2011, where she initially focused on YouMoz. She had been quite active in the greater SEO community, and her knowledge and experience was top-notch. Top that with a need for perfect grammar (she once refused to read a self-published book because of bad grammar), and she took YouMoz to great heights.

Over time, she took over Q&A, and eventually came to manage just about everything happening on the site each day. Keri moved to Seattle, and became a full-time Mozzer in May 2012. Here's a high-level peek at all the areas Keri currently handles:

• Managing YouMoz
• Managing Q&A
• User moderation
• Coordination with Help Team

As someone we often call our "super sleuth," Keri likes to know everything that's happening on the site at all times. My appreciation for her goes well beyond her keeping tabs on the community for us. She cares for Moz and our entire community to her core. She lives and breathes TAGFEE, and holds all of us at Moz to the highest standards, constantly reminding us to focus on our community.

This year in particular was a special one for Keri, as she welcomed her daughter Eloise to the world. I'll throw in a big thank you to Eloise as well, who has brought so much love and happiness to Keri and her husband. :)

2014 Stat: The team banned 1,235 accounts for comment spam.

Erica McGillivray - Sr. Community Manager

Between the time Erica accepted the role of "Community Attache" in October 2011, and the time she actually started just a few weeks later, her job had completely changed. Lucky for us, her background is diverse: Not only has she been an SEO in a previous life, but she's managed email campaigns, writes killer copy, and was once the President of  GeekGirlCon. She accepted the changed role, and focused on marketing communications for a while. However, it didn't take too long for her to find her true calling back on the community team!

Erica quickly proved her prowess at managing speakers and events, and took over our bi-weekly webinars (a.k.a. Mozinars), as well as speaker coordination for our annual conference, MozCon. Plus, with her knowledge of SEO and social, she took over the management of our social media channels, and helped Keri with on-site work as needed.

Today, as our Senior Community Manager, she's in charge of the following areas:

• Speaker management & promotion for MozCon, LocalUp Advanced, and Mozinars
• Event project management (ensuring pages are created for events, videos are ready to sell, etc.)
• Handling of escalated social or on-site issues
• Community strategy
• Team management backup

This year, I'm extremely thankful for Erica stepping in and helping with bigger strategy items, and being my backup! Ok, that really just means she ends up going to a lot more meetings, but still, it's been great. :)

2014 Stat: 8,945 people watched our webinars live.

Christy Correll - Q&A Associate

Christy and I worked together many years ago in Denver (in what feels like a completely different life). When we realized that Q&A was getting more active in early 2012, and we needed an additional set of eyes in there, I knew just who to turn to. Christy was running her own online marketing agency, so I knew she had the background and ability, and I was pleased to find out she had the time as well!

What began as a possible 10 hours/week job has grown into at least a half-time gig. We count on Christy's insights and smarts in Q&A every single day. She and Keri use a spreadsheet with all of our staff and Associates expertise to know who best to assign things to. She's also been helping out more and more with the editing of YouMoz blog posts.

Christy, thank you for your continued excellence in making Q&A an amazing place to give and get answers to all kind of online marketing questions.

2014 Stat: 8,165 questions were asked in Q&A with 31,218 replies.

Megan Singley - Social Community Manager

Megan had been working on the Help team for almost two years, when we stole her over to the community team in January of 2013 (yes, that means she just hit her 4-year mark!). She was more knowledgeable about our tools and how to help our customers than any of the rest of us were. Her love has always been in social, and she initially worked with Erica on managing our social accounts. It didn't take long, though, for her to take over social management, and she is currently the go-to person for all things social media. At this very moment we have some fascinating social tests happening on Twitter thanks to her work. (Now, if only I could get her to write a blog post about the tests!)

She's also the one who can always put a smile on someone's face if they're having a grumpy day. (She once sent a guy cookies because he tweeted @Moz saying the latest Whiteboard Friday had made him hungry for cookies.) And with this kind of work, you run into some grumpy folks now and then (usually me). ;)

Megan is focused on these areas:

• Daily social management (everyone helps with this, but she does the scheduling and is the resource for escalation)
• Social testing
• Product feedback liaison
• Weekly metrics
• Community Chronicle (a monthly email about community metrics)
• Community College (internal training on all things community)

Right? That's a lot! Megan has stepped out of her comfort zone, and helped us to create some great internal processes, and keeps us all on track on social (a place where I usually get in trouble!). I'm grateful to her for taking on this new role and striving to make our social marketing the absolute best in the industry.

2014 Stat: The team sent a whopping 9.6k tweets from the @Moz account.

Melissa Fach - Social Associate

Melissa began as an Associate in 2013, to help us manage the growing YouMoz queue. As a well-known SEO and previous editor at Search Engine Journal, YouMoz made perfect sense for her. During MozCon that year, we asked her to help us manage social while we were busy with the conference, and we quickly realized that social was her true calling for Moz.

With our growing international community, we had been looking for someone to manage all our social channels during our off-hours. Melissa to the rescue! Not only did she already know the industry, and had been a part of the Moz community for years, but lucky for us she lives in Florida, three hours ahead of the Mozplex.

I'm not exactly sure what we'd do without Melissa these days. Her role of managing all the social things during the wee hours of the morning is essential to Moz. She alerts us if there are multiple tweets about a tool not working, or if a certain post is doing exceptionally well (or exceptionally poorly, for that matter). She's the eyes and ears of Moz while those of us here in Seattle are still fast asleep. (Unless we're talking about Keri being up with her newborn at 3 a.m.)

Melissa has the difficult job of working from her home in Florida, yet staying on top of everything that's happening throughout the day at Moz. She does this well, so that each morning she knows how to respond to questions on Twitter, and knows when there's something going on. A huge thank you to her for always making us look so darn good!

2014 Stat: We saw a 43% YOY loss in Facebook traffic.

Trevor Klein - Content Strategist

Trevor is the lucky guy who gets to edit posts for the Moz Blog. Yep, he edited this one too, and when he gets to this part he's going to feel really weird for a few seconds. :) [Editor's note: It's true.] Trevor is a part of the Content Team here at Moz, but because content and community are so closely tied, his job often crosses roles.

Trevor started managing the blog in May 2013. He's upped the ante on our blog content, and quickly realized that content doesn't end upon publishing a post. We get tons of comments and thumbs on posts, and he helps Keri and the rest of the team to moderate all the things. He'll email a member who's posted too many spammy links in their otherwise well written comments, or reply to a comment reminding a member to stay TAGFEE in their responses.

Personally, I'm grateful to have someone on the team who cares so deeply about Moz and the community that he's willing to stand up for his beliefs, and for the community. (Even if he is standing up to or disagreeing with me. ;)) [Editor's sarcastic note: That never happens. Ever.]

2014 Stat: Moz staff edited 622 blog comments for spammy links, TAGFEE wording, etc.

Charlene Inoncillo - Community Brand Manager

Although Charlene started back in September 2011, and had been handling all our event details for a while, it wasn't until 2014 that she became an official part of the Community team. She initially started as the Marketing Admin, and swiftly worked herself into a full-time events manager. Over time this role has changed as she's increased her skillset, and has continued to break her own goals.

Charlene works closely with Erica on all of our events, plus she's in charge of any sponsorships or speaking engagements we have throughout the year. Here's the high-level list of Charlene's roles:

• Event logistics & promotion for MozCon, LocalUp Advanced, and MozPlex events
• Conference sponsorships & promotions
• Swag Management
• Social branding
• Brand monitoring

With her addition, we've completely upped our game when it comes to branding. Charlene works with our design team to create beautiful swag, have a perfect brand experience at MozCon, and essentially make us look good, consistently. It also helps that she's the most organized person I know, and always considers even the tiniest of details. (Which is really great for someone like me who dislikes dealing with details.)

What am I most thankful of Charlene for this year? It's the little things, actually. She ensured that every blog post, webinar, event, product launch, etc. has branded images that we share on social, and in blog posts. These things make a huge impact!

2014 Stat: We sent 573 "Happy" packages and ordered 37,364 swag items.

Danie Launders - Marketing Specialist

While Danie isn't officially on the Community team, we pretend as if she is. We started stealing her time early in 2014, and just keep pulling her in farther (shh, don't tell Annette, our CMO). Danie's ability to jump into any project and willingness to learn all the things have had a great impact on the community team this past year. She's an absolute natural with the Moz "voice" and manages our social channels several times per week (in 4-hour shifts).

She's crazy-organized, so it makes sense that she helps Charlene with all the events, sponsorship, and swag tasks. This year, I'm thankful for every single thing Danie does. Whether making sure our Associates get paid, sending swag to an active member, or just replying to a Facebook message, she does it with grace.
 

2014 Stat: 9k+ tweets were sent using the #MozCon hashtag.

Ronell Smith - YouMoz Associate

Ronell may be our newest member of the team, but his impact has been swift and grand. While Keri was on maternity leave, we needed someone to help manage YouMoz posts. It had to be someone who knows the online marketing industry well, plus has great editing skills, AND is a great writer. When Keri went on leave a bit sooner than expected, we had to throw Ronell into the YouMoz fire without a ton of training.

If you've submitted a YouMoz post recently, and have worked with Ronell, you know what I mean when I say he's kicked royal butt for us. He cares deeply about ensuring that posts are of the highest quality, and he works with authors (I've seen email threads between him and an author that were 65+ emails deep!) to help improve their writing. This is why even after Keri returned from leave, we asked him to continue making YouMoz awesome.

My thank-you to Ronell is for helping us to not only improve our process, but to up our YouMoz game. Heck, the entire community thanks you.

2014 Stat: Only 3.7% of all YouMoz posts submitted were published.

Now it's your turn.

Impressive group of folks, right? Please help me in thanking them for all their amazing work every day for Moz. Also, I bet after reading about them you may even have a few questions of your own. Well, lucky you! Each one of them is on stand-by today to answer any questions you have about their roles at Moz or how we manage all things community.

Go ahead… ask us anything! (about our jobs)

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!