Startups Serving The 99 Percent Will Be the Next Billion-Dollar Companies

Many fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley have one thing in common: they cater to a small, affluent, urban population — the 1percent. Residents in high-cost cities like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles can order an array of goods and services from their mobile phones. These startups, including Uber, Instacart and a host of food delivery apps like Munchery, GrubMarket, Blue… Read More

Cost of Adult Orthodontics & Adult Braces Frisco, TX

https://youtu.be/1MO9EIwIY2gAdult braces vary in cost and according to the course of treatment selected by your orthodontist. Orthodontic treatment can vary in price depending on the patient needs. The Frisco TX office of Texas Dental Specialists sees many adults for orthodontic care with Clear Correct or Invisalign.
How much does it cost for adult orthodontics lasting 12 months?
The price for adult braces is different for different patients. You can expect to pay around $1,750 on average for a adult limited treatment of 1 year. Orthodontic treatment with a full set of braces generally lasts for approximately 2 years, so the majority of people are not a good fit for a limited treatment.
Limited treatment is intended to address a problem with only one or a few teeth, or to minimize a developing problem. The treatment recommended at the time of the initial screening is of a limited nature and is not intended to address all problems that exist, or that may later develop.
Overall, treatment time is dependent upon the seriousness of the problem, patient compliance, and jaw growth. Adult treatment might take slightly more time since adults have no jaw growth remaining to help with bite correction. Most adults are very cooperative in not breaking their appliances, maintaining good oral hygiene, and wearing auxiliaries (e.g. rubber bands) as prescribed. This compliance can negate the majority of the increased treatment time.

Advanced Local SEO Competition Analysis

Posted by Casey_Meraz

Competition in local search is fierce. While it's typical to do some surface level research on your competitors before entering a market, you can go much further down the SEO rabbit hole. In this article we will look at how you can find more competitors, pull their data, and use it to beat them in the search game.

Since there are plenty of resources out there on best practices, this guide will assume that you have already followed the best practices for your own listing and are looking for the little things that might make a big difference in putting you over your competition. So if you haven't already read how to perform the Ultimate Local SEO Audit or how to Find and Build Citations then you should probably start there.

Disclaimer: While it's important to mention that correlation does not mean causation, we can learn a lot by seeing what the competition has done.

Some of the benefits of conducting competitive research are:

• You can really dive into your customers' market and understand it better.
• You can figure out who your real customers area and better target them.
• You can get an understanding of what your competitors have done that has been successful without re-inventing the wheel.

Once you isolate trends that seem to make a positive difference, you can create a hypothesis and test. This allows you to constantly be testing, finding out what works, and growing those positive elements while eliminating the things that don't produce results. Instead of making final decisions off of emotion, make your decisions off of the conversion data.

A good competition analysis will give you a strong insight into the market and allow you to test, succeed, or fail fast. The idea behind this process is to really get a strong snapshot of your competition at a glance to isolate factors you may be missing in your company's online presence.

Disclaimer 2: It's good to use competitors' ideas if they work, but don't make that your only strategy.

Before we get started

Below I will cover a process I commonly use for competition analysis. I have also created this Google Docs spreadsheet for you to follow along with and use for yourself. To make your own copy simply go to File > Make A Copy. (Don't ask me to add you as an owner please :)

Let's get started

1. Find out who your real competitors are

Whether you work internally or were hired as an outside resource to help with your client's SEO campaign, you probably have some idea of who the competition is in your space. Some companies may have good offline marketing but poor online marketing. If you're looking to be the best, it's a good idea to do your own research and see who you're up against.

In my experience it's always good to find and verify 5-10 online competitors in your space from a variety of sources. You can use tools for this or take the manual approach. Keep in mind that you have to screen the data tools give you with your own eye for accuracy.

How do you find your "real" competitors?

We're going to look at some tools you can use to find competitors here in a second, but keep in mind you want to record everything you find.

Make sure to capture the basic information for each competitor including their company name, location, and website. These tools will be useful at a later time. Record these in the "competitor research" tab of the spreadsheet.

Method 1: Standard Google searches for competitors

This is pointing out the obvious, but if you have a set of keywords you want to rank for, you can look for trends and see who is already ranking where you want to be. Don't limit this to just one or two keywords, instead get a broader list of the competitors out there.

To do this, simply come up with a list of several keywords you want to rank for and search for them in your geographic area. Make sure your Geographic preference is set correctly so you get accurate data.

1. Collect a list of keywords
2. Search Google to see which companies are ranking in the local pack
3. Record a list of the companies' names and website URLs in the spreadsheet under the competitor research tab.

To start we're just going to collect the data and enter it into the spreadsheet. We will revisit this data shortly.

Outside of the basics, I always find it's good to see who else is out there. Since organic and local rankings are more closely tied together than ever, it's a good idea to use 3rd party tools to get some insight as to what else your website could be considered related to.

This can help provide hidden opportunities outside of the normal competition you likely look at most frequently.

Method 2: Use SEMRUSH.com

SEMRush is a pretty neat competitive analysis tool. While it is a paid program, they do in fact have a few free visits a day you can check out. It's limited but it will show you 10 competitors based on keyword ranking data. It's also useful for recording paid competition as well.

To use the tool, visit www.SEMRush.com and enter your website in the provided search box and hit search. Once the page loads, you simply have to scroll down to the area that says "main competitors". If you click the "view full report" option you'll be taken to a page with 10 competition URLs.

Put these URLs into the spreadsheet so we can track them later.

Method 3: Use SPYFU.com

This is a cool tool that will show your top 5 competitors in paid and organic search. Just like SEMRush, it's a paid tool that's easy to use. On the home page, you will see a box that loads where you can enter your URL. Once you hit search, a list of 5 websites will populate for free.

Enter these competitors into your spreadsheet for tracking.

Method 4: Use Crunchbase.com

This website is a goldmine of data if you're trying to learn about a startup. In addition to the basic information we're looking for, you can also find out things like how much money they've raised, staff members, past employee history, and so much more.

Crunchbase also works pretty similarly to the prior tools in the sense that you you just enter your website URL and hit the search button. Once the page loads, you can scroll down the page to the competitors section for some data.

While Crunchbase is cool, it's not too useful for smaller companies as it doesn't seem to have too much data outside of the startup world.

Method 5: Check out Compete.com

This tool seems to have limited data for smaller websites but it's worth a shot. It can also be a little bit more high-level than I prefer, but you should still check it out.

To use the tool visit www.compete.com and enter the URL you want to examine in the box provided then hit search.

Click the "Find more sites like" box to get list of three related sites. Enter these in the provided spreadsheet.

Method 6: Use SimilarWeb.com

SimilarWeb provides a cool tool with a bunch of data to check out websites. After entering your information, you can scroll down to the similar sites section which will show websites it believes to be related.

The good news about SimilarWeb is that it seems to have data no matter how big or small your site is.

2. After you know who they are, mine their data

Now that we have a list of competitors, we can really do a deep dive to see who is ranking and what factors might be contributing to their success. To start, make sure to pick your top competitors from the spreadsheet and then look for and record the information below about each business on the Competitor Analysis tab.

You will want to to pull this information from their Google My Business page.

If you know the company's name, it's pretty easy to find them just by searching the brand. You can add the geographic location if it's a multi-location business.

For example if I was searching for a Wendy's in Parker, Colorado, I could simply search this: "Wendy's Parker, CO" and it will pull up the location(s).

Make sure to take and record the following information from their local listings. Get the data from their Google My Business (Google + Page) and record it in the spreadsheet!

1. Business name - Copy and paste the whole business name. Sometimes businesses keyword stuff a name or have a geographic modifier. It's important to account for this.
2. Address - The full address of the business location. Although we can't do anything about its physical location, we will search using this information shortly.
3. City, state, zip code - The city, state, and zip listed on the Google My Business listing.
4. Phone number - Take the listing's primary number
5. Phone number 2 - Take the listing's secondary number like an 800 number.
6. Landing page URL - The one connected to their Google My Business listing.
   PRO TIP: The URL will display as the root domain, but click the link to see if it takes you to an internal landing page. This is essential!
7. Number of categories - Does your listing have more or less categories than the listing?
8. Categories in Google My Business
   You can find the categories by clicking on the main category of the listing. It will pop out a list of all of the categories the business is listed under. If you only see one after doing this, open your browser and go to View Source. If you do Ctrl+F you can search the page for "GCID" without the quotes. This will show you the categories they're listed under if you look through the HTML.
9. Does the profile appear to be 100% complete?
10. How many reviews do they have?
11. Is their business name visible in Google Street View? Obviously there is not much we can do about this, but it's interesting especially considering some patents Bill Slawski was recently talking about.

** Record this information on the spreadsheet. A sample is below.

What can we do with this data?

Since you've already optimized your own listing for best practices, we want to see if there is any particular trends that seem to be working better in a certain area. We can then create a hypothesis and test it to see if any gains are losses are made. While we can't isolate factors, we can get some insight as to what's working the more you change it.

In my experience, examining trends is much easier when the data is side by side. You can easily pick out data that stands out from the rest.

3. Have a close(r) look at their landing pages

You already know the ins and outs of your landing page. Now let's look at each competitor's landing page individually. Let's look at the factors that carry the most weight and see if anything sticks out.

Record the following information into the spreadsheet and compare side by side with your company vs. the successful ones.

Page title of landing page

City present? - Is the city present in the landing page meta title?

State present? - Is the state present in the landing page meta title?

Major KW in title? Is there a major keyword in the landing page meta title?

Content length on landing page - Possibly minor but worth examining. Copy/paste into MS Word

H1 present? - Is the H1 tag present?

City in H1? - Does the H1 contain the city name?

State in H1? - Does the H1 have the state or abbreviation in the heading?

Keyword in H1? - Do they use a keyword in the H1?

Local business schema present? - Are they using schema? Find out using the Google structured data testing tool here.

Embedded map present? - Are they embedding a Google map?

GPS coordinates present? - Are they using GPS coordinates via schema or text?

4. Off site: See what google thinks is authoritative

Recently, I was having a conversation with a client who was super-excited about the efforts his staff was making. He proudly proclaimed that his office was building 10 new citations a day and added over 500 within the past couple of months!

His excitement freaked me out. As I suspected, when I asked to see his list, I saw a bunch of low quality directory sites that were passing little or no value. One way I could tell they were not really helping (besides the fact that some were NSFW websites), was that the citations or listings were not even indexed in Google.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that you should test to see what Google knows about your business. Whatever Google delivers about your brand, it's serving because it has the most relevance or authority in its eyes.

So how can we see what Google sees?

It's actually pretty simple. Just do a Google Search. One of the ways that I try to evaluate and see whether or not a citation website is authoritative enough is to take the competition's NAP and Google it. While you've probably done this many times before for citation earning, you can prioritize your efforts based off of what's recurring between top ranked competitor websites.

As you can see in the example below where I did a quick search for a competitor's dental office (by pasting his NAP in the search bar), I see that Google is associating this particular brand with websites like:

1. The company's main website
2. Whitepages
3. Amazon Local (New)
4. Rateadentist.com
5. DentalNeighbor.com

Pro Tip: Amazon local is relatively new, but you can see that it's going to carry a citation benefit in local search. If your clients are willing, you should sign up for this.

Don't want to copy and paste the NAP in a variety of formats? Use Andrew Shotland's NAP Hunter to get your competitor's variants. This tool will easily open multiple window tabs in your browser and search for combinations of your competitor's NAP listings. It makes it easy and it's kind of fun.

5. Check important citations

With citations, I'm generally in the ballpark of quality over quantity. That being said, if you're just getting the same citations that everyone else has, that doesn't really set you apart does it? I like to tell clients that the top citation sources are a must, but it's good to seek out opportunities and monitor what your competition does so you can keep up and stay ahead of the game.

You need to check the top citations and see where you're listed vs. your competition. Tools like Whitespark's local citation finder make this much easier to get an easy snapshot.

If you're looking to see which citations you should find and check, use these two resources below:

• Learn how to find and build the top citations here
• Top Citation Sources By Category

Just like in the example in the section above, you can find powerful hidden gems and also new website opportunities that arise from time to time.

Just because you did it once doesn't mean you should leave it alone

A common mistake I see is businesses thinking it's ok to just turn things off when they get to the top.That's a bad idea. If you're serious about online marketing, you know that someone is always out to get you. So in addition to tracking your brand mentions through the Fresh Web Explorer, you also need to be tracking your competition at least once a month! The good news is that you can do this easily with Fresh Web Explorer from Moz.

So what should you setup in Fresh Web Explorer?

• Your competitor's brand name - Monitor their mentions and see what type of marketing they're doing!
• Your competitor's NAP - Easily find new citations they're going after
• City+Industry+Keywords - Maybe there are some hidden gems outside of your competition you could go after!

Plus track anything else you can think of related to your brand. This will help the on-going efforts get a bit easier.

6. Figure out which citations have dofollow links

Did you know some citation sources have dofollow links which mean they pass link juice to your website? Now while these by themselves likely won't pass a lot of juice, it adds an incentive for you to be proactive with recording and promoting these listings.

When reviewing my competition's citations and links I use a simple Chrome plugin called NoFollow which simply highlights nofollow links on pages. It makes it super easy to see what's a follow vs. a nofollow link.

But what's the benefit of this? Let's say that I have a link on a city website that's a follow link and a citation. If it's an authority page that talks highly about my business, it would make sense for me to link to it from time to time. If you're getting links from websites other than your own and linking to these high quality citations you will pass link juice to your page. It's a pretty simple way of increasing the authority of your local landing pages.

7. Links, links, links

Since the Pigeon update almost a year ago, links started to make a bigger impact in local search. You have to be earning links and you have to earn high quality links to your website and especially your Google My Business Landing page.

If the factors show you're on the same playing field as your competition except in domain authority or page authority, you know your primary focus needs to be links.

Now here is where the research gets interesting. Remember the data sources we pulled earlier like compete, spyfu.com, etc? We are now going to get a bigger picture on the link profile because we did this extra work. Not only are we just going to look at the links that our competition in the pack has, we've started to branch out of that for more ideas which will potentially pay off big in the long run.

What to do now

Now we want to take every domain we looked at when we started and run Open Site Explorer on each and every domain. Once we have these lists of links, we can then sort them out and go after the high quality ones that you don't already have.

Typically, when I'm doing this research I will export everything into Excel or Google Docs, combine them into one spreadsheet and then sort from highest authority to least authority. This way you can prioritize your road map and focus on the bigger fish.

Keep in mind that citations usually have links and some links have citations. If they have a lot of authority you should make sure you add both.

8. But what about user behavior?

If you feel like you've gone above and beyond your competition and yet you're not seeing the gains you want, there is more you have to look at. Sometimes as an SEO it's easy to get in a paradigm of just the technical or link side of things. But what about user behavior?

It's no secret and even some recent tests are showing promising data. If your users visit your site and then click back to the search results it indicates that they didn't find what they were looking for. Through our own experiments we have seen listings in the SERPs jump a few positions in hours just based off of user behavior.

So what does this mean for you?

You need to make sure your pages are answering the users queries as they land on your page, preferably above the fold. For example, if I'm looking for a haircut place and I land on your page, I might be wanting to know the hours, pricing, or directions to your store. Making information prevalent is essential.

Make sure that if you're going to make these changes you test them. Come up with a hypothesis, test the results, and come to conclusion or another test based off of the data. If you want to know more about your users, I say that you need to find as much about them as human possible. Some services you can use for that are:

1. Inspectlet - Record user sessions and watch how they navigate your website. This awesome tool literally allows you to watch recorded user sessions. Check out their site.

2. LinkedIn Tracking Script - Although I admit it's a bit creepy, did you know that you can see the actual visitors to your website if they're logged into LinkedIn while browsing your website? You sure can. To do this complete the following steps:

1. Sign up for a LinkedIn Premium Account
2. Enter this code into the body of your website pages:

<img src="https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?authToken=zRgB&authType=name&id=XXXXX" />

3. Replace the XXXXX with your account number of your profile. You can get this by logging into your profile page and getting the number present after viewid?=
4. Wait for the visitors to start showing up under "who's viewed your profile"

3. Google Analytics - Watch user behavior and gain insights as so what they were doing on your website.

Reviews

Speaking of user behavior, is your listing the only one without reviews? Does it have fewer or less favorable reviews? All of these are negative signals for user experience. Do you competitors have more positive reviews? If so you need to work getting more.

Meta descriptions

While this post was mainly geared towards local SEO as in Google My Business rankings, you have to consider that there are a lot of localized search queries that do not generate pack results. In these cases they're just standard organic listings.

If you've been deterred to add these by Google picking its own meta descriptions or by their lack of ranking benefit, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. Seriously. Customers will make a decision on which listing to click on based on this information. If you're not thinking about optimizing these for user intent on the corresponding page then you're just being lazy. Spend the time, increase CTR, and increase your rankings if you're serving great content.

Conclusion

The key to success here is realizing that this is a marathon and not a sprint. If you examine the competition in the top areas mentioned above and create a plan to overcome, you will win long term. This of course also assumes you're not doing anything shady and staying above board.

While there were many more things I could add to this article, I believe that if you put your focus on what's mentioned here you'll have the greatest success. Since I didn't talk too much about geo-tagged media in this article, I also included some other items to check in the spreadsheet under the competitor analysis tab.

Remember to actively monitor what those around you are doing and develop a pro-active plan to be successful for your clients.

What's the most creative thing you have seen a competitor do successfully local search? I would love to hear about it in the comments below.

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!

Cost of Adult Braces & Orthodontics Frisco Texas

Adult braces vary in cost and according to the treatment plan selected by your orthodontist. Orthodontic treatment can vary in price depending on the patient needs. The Frisco TX office of Texas Dental Specialists sees many adults for orthodontic care with Clear Correct or Invisalign. How much should I have to pay for adult braces lasting 12 months? The cost for adult orthodontics is different for different patients. You can expect to pay around $1,750 on average for a adult limited treatment of 12 months. Orthodontic treatment with a full set of braces generally lasts for approximately 24 months, so the majority of people are not a good fit for a limited treatment. Limited treatment is intended to address a problem with only a few teeth, or to lessen a problem that is developing. The treatment indicated at the time of the initial visit is of a general type and is not meant to address all problems that exist, or that may later develop. In general, treatment time is dependent on the severity of the problem, patient cooperation, and jaw growth. Adult treatment might take a little longer because adults have no jaw growth left to help with bite correction. Most adults are very cooperative in not breaking their appliances, maintaining good oral hygiene, and wearing auxiliaries (e.g. rubber bands) as prescribed. This compliance can negate the majority of the increased treatment time. https://youtu.be/1MO9EIwIY2g

YC-Backed Cymmetria Uses Virtual Machines To Decoy And Detect Hackers

YC-backed Cymmetria, which is uncloaking from stealth now after around a year working its cyber security startup business, wants to tilt the traditional security odds so it’s hackers who are left feeling vulnerable and on their guard — by giving the businesses whose systems are under attack a ‘home advantage’. Read More

The Berlin Startup Ecosystem Needs An IPO In The U.S.

On the heels of Microsoft’s acquisition of the Berlin startup darling 6Wunderkinder for a price between $100 and $200 million, the debate rages on about whether Berlin startups should be bolder and wait longer for an exit. The consensus in the Berlin startup ecosystem is that we are still missing one extraordinarily big success. Read More

CrunchWeek: Taylor Hugs Apple, Verizon Buys Us, And New NSA Leaks

Hello, friends, and welcome to a slightly more important episode of CrunchWeek. This week, we became vassals of a new empire, Taylor Swift bequeathed her most recent album to Apple’s new streaming product, and WikiLeaks is back in the news as fresh NSA leaks have emerged. Read More

How to Rid Your Website of Six Common Google Analytics Headaches

Posted by amandaecking

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

I've been in and out of Google Analytics (GA) for the past five or so years agency-side. I've seen three different code libraries, dozens of new different features and reports roll out, IP addresses stop being reported, and keywords not-so-subtly phased out of the free platform.

Analytics has been a focus of mine for the past year or so—mainly, making sure clients get their data right. Right now, our new focus is closed loop tracking, but that's a topic for another day. If you're using Google Analytics, and only Google Analytics for the majority of your website stats, or it's your primary vehicle for analysis, you need to make sure it's accurate.

Not having data pulling in or reporting properly is like building a house on a shaky foundation: It doesn't end well. Usually there are tears.

For some reason, a lot of people, including many of my clients, assume everything is tracking properly in Google Analytics... because Google. But it's not Google who sets up your analytics. People do that. And people are prone to make mistakes.

I'm going to go through six scenarios where issues are commonly encountered with Google Analytics.

I'll outline the remedy for each issue, and in the process, show you how to move forward with a diagnosis or resolution.

1. Self-referrals

This is probably one of the areas we're all familiar with. If you're seeing a lot of traffic from your own domain, there's likely a problem somewhere—or you need to extend the default session length in Google Analytics. (For example, if you have a lot of long videos or music clips and don't use event tracking; a website like TEDx or SoundCloud would be a good equivalent.)

Typically one of the first things I'll do to help diagnose the problem is include an advanced filter to show the full referrer string. You do this by creating a filter, as shown below:

Filter Type: Custom filter > Advanced
Field A: Hostname
Extract A: (.*)
Field B: Request URI
Extract B: (.*)
Output To: Request URI
Constructor: $A1$B1

You'll then start seeing the subdomains pulling in. Experience has shown me that if you have a separate subdomain hosted in another location (say, if you work with a separate company and they host and run your mobile site or your shopping cart), it gets treated by Google Analytics as a separate domain. Thus, you 'll need to implement cross domain tracking. This way, you can narrow down whether or not it's one particular subdomain that's creating the self-referrals.

In this example below, we can see all the revenue is being reported to the booking engine (which ended up being cross domain issues) and their own site is the fourth largest traffic source:

I'll also a good idea to check the browser and device reports to start narrowing down whether the issue is specific to a particular element. If it's not, keep digging. Look at pages pulling the self-referrals and go through the code with a fine-tooth comb, drilling down as much as you can.

2. Unusually low bounce rate

If you have a crazy-low bounce rate, it could be too good to be true. Unfortunately. An unusually low bounce rate could (and probably does) mean that at least on some pages of your website have the same Google Analytics tracking code installed twice.

Take a look at your source code, or use Google Tag Assistant (though it does have known bugs) to see if you've got GA tracking code installed twice.

While I tell clients having Google Analytics installed on the same page can lead to double the pageviews, I've not actually encountered that—I usually just say it to scare them into removing the duplicate implementation more quickly. Don't tell on me.

3. Iframes anywhere

I've heard directly from Google engineers and Google Analytics evangelists that Google Analytics does not play well with iframes, and that it will never will play nice with this dinosaur technology.

If you track the iframe, you inflate your pageviews, plus you still aren't tracking everything with 100% clarity.

If you don't track across iframes, you lose the source/medium attribution and everything becomes a self-referral.

Damned if you do; damned if you don't.

My advice: Stop using iframes. They're Netscape-era technology anyway, with rainbow marquees and Comic Sans on top. Interestingly, and unfortunately, a number of booking engines (for hotels) and third-party carts (for ecommerce) still use iframes.

If you have any clients in those verticals, or if you're in the vertical yourself, check with your provider to see if they use iframes. Or you can check for yourself, by right-clicking as close as you can to the actual booking element:

There is no neat and tidy way to address iframes with Google Analytics, and usually iframes are not the only complicated element of setup you'll encounter. I spent eight months dealing with a website on a subfolder, which used iframes and had a cross domain booking system, and the best visibility I was able to get was about 80% on a good day.

Typically, I'd approach diagnosing iframes (if, for some reason, I had absolutely no access to viewing a website or talking to the techs) similarly to diagnosing self-referrals, as self-referrals are one of the biggest symptoms of iframe use.

4. Massive traffic jumps

Massive jumps in traffic don't typically just happen. (Unless, maybe, you're Geraldine.) There's always an explanation—a new campaign launched, you just turned on paid ads for the first time, you're using content amplification platforms, you're getting a ton of referrals from that recent press in The New York Times. And if you think it just happened, it's probably a technical glitch.

I've seen everything from inflated pageviews result from including tracking on iframes and unnecessary implementation of virtual pageviews, to not realizing the tracking code was installed on other microsites for the same property. Oops.

Usually I've seen this happen when the tracking code was somewhere it shouldn't be, so if you're investigating a situation of this nature, first confirm the Google Analytics code is only in the places it needs to be.Tools like Google Tag Assistant and Screaming Frog can be your BFFs in helping you figure this out.

Also, I suggest bribing the IT department with sugar (or booze) to see if they've changed anything lately.

5. Cross-domain tracking

I wish cross-domain tracking with Google Analytics out of the box didn't require any additional setup. But it does.

If you don't have it set up properly, things break down quickly, and can be quite difficult to untangle.

The older the GA library you're using, the harder it is. The easiest setup, by far, is Google Tag Manager with Universal Analytics. Hard-coded universal analytics is a bit more difficult because you have to implement autoLink manually and decorate forms, if you're using them (and you probably are). Beyond that, rather than try and deal with it, I say update your Google Analytics code. Then we can talk.

Where I've seen the most murkiness with tracking is when parts of cross domain tracking are implemented, but not all. For some reason, if allowLinker isn't included, or you forget to decorate all the forms, the cookies aren't passed between domains.

The absolute first place I would start with this would be confirming the cookies are all passing properly at all the right points, forms, links, and smoke signals. I'll usually use a combination of the Real Time report in Google Analytics, Google Tag Assistant, and GA debug to start testing this. Any debug tool you use will mean you're playing in the console, so get friendly with it.

6. Internal use of UTM strings

I've saved the best for last. Internal use of campaign tagging. We may think, oh, I use Google to tag my campaigns externally, and we've got this new promotion on site which we're using a banner ad for. That's a campaign. Why don't I tag it with a UTM string?

Step away from the keyboard now. Please.

When you tag internal links with UTM strings, you override the original source/medium. So that visitor who came in through your paid ad and then who clicks on the campaign banner has now been manually tagged. You lose the ability to track that they came through on the ad the moment they click on the tagged internal link. Their source and medium is now your internal campaign, not that paid ad you're spending gobs of money on and have to justify to your manager. See the problem?

I've seen at least three pretty spectacular instances of this in the past year, and a number of smaller instances of it. Annie Cushing also talks about the evils of internal UTM tags and the odd prevalence of it. (Oh, and if you haven't explored her blog, and the amazing spreadsheets she shares, please do.)

One clothing company I worked with tagged all of their homepage offers with UTM strings, which resulted in the loss of visibility for one-third of their audience: One million visits over the course of a year, and $2.1 million in lost revenue.

Let me say that again. One million visits, and $2.1 million. That couldn't be attributed to an external source/campaign/spend.

Another client I audited included campaign tagging on nearly every navigational element on their website. It still gives me nightmares.

If you want to see if you have any internal UTM strings, head straight to the Campaigns report in Acquisition in Google Analytics, and look for anything like "home" or "navigation" or any language you may use internally to refer to your website structure.

And if you want to see how users are moving through your website, go to the Flow reports. Or if you really, really, really want to know how many people click on that sidebar link, use event tracking. But please, for the love of all things holy (and to keep us analytics lovers from throwing our computers across the room), stop using UTM tagging on your internal links.

Now breathe and smile

Odds are, your Google Analytics setup is fine. If you are seeing any of these issues, though, you have somewhere to start in diagnosing and addressing the data.

We've looked at six of the most common points of friction I've encountered with Google Analytics and how to start investigating them: self-referrals, bounce rate, iframes, traffic jumps, cross domain tracking and internal campaign tagging.

What common data integrity issues have you encountered with Google Analytics? What are your favorite tools to investigate?

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!

How to Build Links in Person

Posted by RuthBurrReedy

The important thing to remember when you're trying to attract links—real, powerful, high-quality, authoritative links—is that behind each of those links is a person. The kinds of links that Google wants you to build are the kinds of links that you get when a real live person decides to share or link to your content.

That great content you're creating is designed to be the kind of stuff people like to share, but getting people to share it often requires outreach. When you ask someone to read and possibly share your content, even if it's content you think they'll really like, you're essentially asking them to do you a favor. That's a lot easier to do if it's somebody who already knows you and likes you.

This is why a relationship-based approach to link building can be so powerful. By connecting with site owners on a personal level, you can start creating a positive association between you and the content you share. Start thinking of a link as something that's given online by a real live person who also exists outside the Internet, and you can move from being a link builder to being a relationship builder. One moment of link outreach can generate a link, but an ongoing relationship can result in multiple links and shares, not to mention introductions into that person's network of friends and connections.

Plus, you might make a friend!

Photo via Pixabay

A few caveats

In-person link outreach is not for everybody. There are a few reasons why building links in person might not work for you.

• No budget: Like many content building and link outreach strategies, some of the in-person link building tactics I outline below will require a financial outlay, which not everybody can swing.
• No time: In-person link outreach takes a lot of time, and some of it will almost certainly need to be spent outside of work hours (or during work hours, but not at work).
• Too far away: If you're not located in the same city/state/country as your client, it's going to be harder for you to build links for them in person.
• Not a people person: If you dread talking to people, especially people you don't know, this strategy is going to be massively unpleasant for you.

Yes, you still have to build good content. Like any good strategy to attract links, building links in person is only going to work if you're also taking the time to build linkable, shareable resources that people will want to link to (need some help building content for your industry? Check out Ronell Smith's guide to creating content for boring industries). As you're laying the foundation for your link outreach relationships, you should also be planning your content calendar—that way, by the time you've got a great linkable asset ready to share, you've gotten to know some people who can share it.

Don't be creepy. The point of in-person link building is not to lie, cheat, or manipulate people into being friends with you in order to secretly use them for their sweet, sweet links. The point is to form strong, genuine professional relationships with people who will appreciate the awesome work you do. You'll be a stronger marketer for it, and maybe even meet your next boss or BFF.

All right! Let's make some friends.

Where to build links in person

Trade shows and conferences. This is the "budget outlay" item that I mentioned earlier: if you can swing it, attend some trade shows and conferences in your/your client's industry. Of course, this is easier to do if you're in-house, or only building links for a few clients, than if you have a whole roster of different sites in different industries under your care.

If your clients are in your area, make sure they let you know when they'll be attending or exhibiting at events, and see if you can tag along. Events like a home and garden show usually have tickets for under $20. In-house marketers should also see if they can be part of the booth staff at trade shows where their clients are exhibiting. If there's a relevant conference or trade show in your area and your client isn't exhibiting, see if you can get an expo-only pass for free or a reduced rate.

Marketing conferences can be a great place to hone your SEO skills, but they can also be a great place to connect with other marketers. If you're attending a marketing/SEO conference, take a look at the attendee list and see if there are other marketers from your industry who will be attending (especially if they don't work for competitors). Another SEO is going to understand why you might be asking them to share or link to your content, so it's worth your while to cultivate relationships with other SEOs who might have access to topically-related sites. A marketing conference is a great way for SEOs with a lot of different clients to build link relationships across multiple industries, too.

Shane Macomber Photography

Meetups and trade associations. In addition to higher-dollar industry events, most metro areas have a variety of meetups, clubs and associations, many of which are free to join. If your client is a member of an industry association, see if you can tag along to an event that's open to the public; even closed-membership groups tend to have a mixer or two every year to let potential new members experience the group.

Check sites like Meetup, LinkedIn, Facebook and yes, Google+, for groups in your area. There may be groups focused on your client's industry/ies, but it's also worthwhile to start attending local events around marketing, PR, advertising, social media, etc. to connect with other local marketers. Inbound links from sites in the same local area can be quite valuable for websites with a strong local focus, so building link relationships within your local community is definitely worth doing—and is another way to build link relationships for multiple clients at once.

Assessing link relationships

Of course, just because you've met someone in person doesn't mean they're going to link to you, or even that you'd necessarily want a link from them. Try to do some recon before heading to the event, so you can keep an eye out for your dream link targets.

Wherever possible, get a list of people who will be attending the event; this will help you pick out a few people with whom you'd really like to connect. If you can't get a list beforehand, compile a list of the people you met afterward and do some research.

Don't forget that attendees are people, not just businesses—you'll want to take some time to check attendees out on social media and LinkedIn, too. A person may have a business card from one company but actually work with multiple businesses. Someone with no website of their own might be a regular contributor to an industry blog, or just fantastically well-connected in the community you're trying to join and still worth getting to know. A person's position within a company will matter, too—you're more likely to get a link from a marketing/web person (who has access to the website) than, e.g., the manufacturing plant supervisor (who probably doesn't, and also has other things to do).

Take some time to evaluate sites like you would any other link prospect. Stay away from sites that appear at risk for a penalty, or are sleazy enough that you don't want to associate your client's brand with them. That doesn't mean they're not still worth getting to know as people (you should certainly never shun people at conferences, that's just rude), it just means that they won't be a focus of your link outreach later.

Make the connection

When you meet someone with whom you'd like to build a link-based relationship, don't start out asking for the link, any more than you would online. If you're at a networking or industry event, there's a basic understanding that people are there to make professional connections—there's no need to be more specific than that and say you're there to make connections that might result in links (nobody wants to feel like they're being used for their links).

After your research, you'll probably have a few people who you want to make sure you meet, but don't seek them out at the expense of forming other connections. Remember that your goal here is more than just a link—it's a relationship, which could be mutually beneficial to both of you. Ask people questions about themselves, their work and what they think about the event. Just like on social media, you don't want to talk only about yourself—your main success metric for these events should be engagement.

When a networking conversation is drawing to a natural close, excuse yourself (if you need an excuse, getting more food or drink is usually a good bet)—but make sure to get a business card, or social media info from your new professional connection. As you follow your new friends on Twitter or G+, add them to a list or circle for people from the event or group you've attended so you have them all in one place later.

Follow up

By the end of the event, you should have a list of new friends who might link to or share your content. Your next step is not to ask them to do so, however (unless you have a specific content piece that came up in your conversation that they were interested in). Your next step is to nurture that connection.

Start with a quick tweet or email the next morning that says it was great to meet them and maybe references something in your conversation. If your only point of contact for them is email, use it very sparingly—nobody likes aggressive emails. Your best best in this case is to try to see them again at the next event, to continue nurturing your relationship in person. You could also see if they want to meet for coffee or lunch to talk shop.

Photo via Pixabay

If you've added your new connections on social media, take some time every day to check in with your list. Talk to them—they're your new friends! Reply to their tweets, answer questions they might ask, and above all, share their content when they post it. You're showing them that you're a connection worth having by bringing value to their conversations. Make sure to switch up the time of day you're doing this, since different people use social media at different times of day. If you get into a conversation with some of their followers, make sure to add them to your list, too.

Over time, it will become clear which people are turning into real connections and which are just not going to respond to you. You'll also see some of your new pals sharing the content you post, without you even having to ask them—that's a great sign that they're seeing you and your content as valuable.

When your feel your relationship with someone is at a point where you can ask them for a favor without it being weird, go ahead and ask them to share or link to a piece of content of yours. Make sure the content in question is actually relevant to what they do/like; one awesome thing about relationship-based link building is that you may actually get content ideas by listening to what your new friends have to say. Be cool about it—a simple "Hey, I thought you'd like this, check it out" is often enough.

All of this relationship building can also be done online—people do it all the time. However, in my experience, meeting someone in person can drastically reduce the amount of time and the number of interactions it can take to build trust with someone and get to the point where you're happy to share each other's content. As with most link-building strategies, a time investment up-front can pay dividends down the line.

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!

What to See, Do, and More at MozCon 2015 in Seattle

Posted by EricaMcGillivray

One of our favorite things about MozCon is introducing all of you to Seattle. We love our city, and besides three days of marketing learning, we also host three night events and facilitate other fun activities. We are currently 92% sold out with around 100 tickets left, so if you haven't already:

Buy your ticket now!

Check out the full schedule if you're interested in knowing more about the MozCon sessions.

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Birds-of-a-feather tables at lunch

After many requests for more community connecting, this year, we're launching birds-of-a-feather tables during each lunch. There will be eight labeled tables with different topics each day and a different facilitator each day. (There are also a ton of unlabeled tables for random meeting and gatherings.) Sit down and join a conversation around a professional interest.

Table schedule

Monday tables:

• Real Estate Marketers, hosted by Brittanie Flegle from Realty Austin
• Manufacturing, hosted by Crystal Hunt from WTB, Inc.
• Content Strategy, hosted by Ronell Smith from RS Consulting
• Women in Digital Marketing, hosted by Susan Wiker from Fodor's Travel
• In-house Marketers, hosted by Andy Odom from Santander Consumer USA Inc.
• Local SEO, hosted by David Mihm from Moz
• Inbound Marketing, hosted by Eric Hess from REI
• SEO Executives, hosted by Benjamin Seror from SimilarWeb

Tuesday tables:

• Women in Digital Marketing, hosted by Heather Physioc from Tentacle Inbound
• In-house Marketers, hosted by Kelly Cooper from Moz
• Independent Consultants, hosted by Lisa Kaneff from The Next Chapter
• Google Penalties, hosted by Michael Cottam from Visual Itineraries
• Local SEO, hosted by Paul Sherland from IX Brand SEO Services Company
• International SEO and Content, hosted by Zeph Snapp from Altura Interactive
• Enterprise Content, hosted by Craig Harkins from InterContinental Hotels Group
• Social Media, hosted by Lala Castro from GigaSavvy

Wednesday tables:

• Moz Q&A Forum, hosted by Christy Correll from Honey Tree Media
• In-house Marketers, hosted by Donna M. Snow from Reputation.com
• Blogging Outside the Industry, hosted by Dustin Nay from Christensen & Hymas
• Local SEO, hosted by Greg Gifford from DealerOn, Inc
• Branding and Metadata, hosted by Misty Weaver from Portent, Inc.
• Growing an Agency, hosted by James Loomstein from Digital Space Consulting
• Women in Digital Marketing, hosted by Jen Lopez from Moz
• MozCon Community Speakers, host TBD

Don't worry, with all of us in the same room, doing the same things for three days, you'll never miss a lunch or birds-of-a-feather opportunity!

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Our official MozCon evening events

#MozCrawl: Monday night

Join us and our partners for a tour of the neighborhood bars in Belltown. This is our second official MozCrawl, and we're delighted to show off yet another part of Seattle. Each bar will feature a unique MozCon button. Collect all six and be entered in a drawing for a golden Roger. The crawl runs from 7-10pm. Make sure to bring your ID, US driver's license or passport.

(Standard disclaimer: Roger is golden, not made of gold.)

Locations

Buckley's, 2331 2nd Ave, hosted by
Clever Bottle, 2222 2nd Ave Ste.100, hosted by
Rabbit Hole, 2222 2nd Ave, hosted by
Lava Lounge, 2226 2nd Ave, hosted by
Wakefield Bar, 2137 2nd Ave, hosted by
The Whiskey Bar, 2122 2nd Ave, hosted by

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MozCon Ignite: Tuesday night

You've long asked for a networking-focused event, and in a Mozzy spirit, we're happy to bring our Tuesday night MozCon Ignite. Starts at 7pm with networking and appetizers with talks starting at 8pm.

Ignite talks are 5 minutes in length with auto-advancing slides. All these talks are passion topics—no marketing talks—so you can put your notebook down and relax. Get to know your fellow community members and their interests beyond our shared profession.

MozCon Ignite schedule:

7:00-8:00pm	Networking
8:00-8:05pm	Welcome to MozCon Ignite with Geraldine DeRuiter, aka the Everywhereist
8:05-8:10pm	Regales of an Accidental Nightcrawler Stunt Double with Jay Neill from Affiliate Resources, Inc. Jay Neill is an online marketing consultant who helps businesses get started in the world of local SEO through education and servicing. In his spare time, Jay enjoys jumping on trampolines and playing with his vast collection of vintage Star Wars action figures.
8:10-8:15pm	Sled Dogs, Northern Lights, and Mushing Tails! with Anna Anderson from Art Unlimited Anna Anderson is an avid dog lover who owns over 35 sled dogs in Northern MN. Growing up with sled dogs, she and her family now competitively race across North America: training, racing, and traveling for 2-3 months with 20 of her best canine friends across the country! Follow her on Twitter: @boldadgirl
8:15-8:20pm	Performing a Canine C-Section with Marie Haynes from HIS Web Marketing Dr. Marie Haynes is recognized as a leader when it comes to dealing with Google penalties and algorithm changes like Panda and Penguin. Prior to her career in SEO, she was a small animal veterinarian for 13 years. It is possible that her strong fear of birds is what launched her in to a new life of battling the Penguins at Google. Follow her on Twitter: @Marie_Haynes
8:20-8:25pm	Bulltown Strutters: The Band That Married Its City with Mark Traphagen from StoneTemple Consulting Mark Traphagen is Senior Director of Online Marketing for Stone Temple Consulting. When not disrupting things online, Mark disrupts the sleep of the good citizens of Durham, NC, by making as much noise as possible with the Bulltown Strutters, a New Orleans Second Line style parade band. Follow him on Twitter: @marktraphagen
8:25-8:30pm	Okay, I Have a Confession: I Was Homeschooled with Garrett Mehrguth from Directive Consulting Garrett Mehrguth is digital marketing enthusiast and owner of Directive Consulting, which provides SEO, PPC, and Content for small to mid-market companies. When Garrett's not in the office, you can catch him playing foosball, surfing, or playing soccer. Follow him on Twitter: @gmehrguth
8:30-8:35pm	Conquering the 100 Best Books of All Time with Kristen Craft from Wistia Kristen Craft is Director of Business Development and loves connecting with Wistia's partner community to spread the word about video marketing. In her spare time, she takes epically long walks, swims in ponds, and brews beer. Follow her on Twitter: @thecrafty
8:35-8:40pm	Tales of Coffee from a Kitchen Window with Scott Callender from La Marzocco Home Scott Callendar is the Director of the newly launched La Marzocco Home. He is the definition of a coffee geek and spends his time away from his job in coffee with his family and thinks more about coffee. Follow him on Twitter: @incognitocoffee
8:40-8:45pm	Go Frost Yourself: 7 Basic Frostings & Their Uses with Annette Promes from Moz Annette Promes has spent the past two decades in and around Seattle working in various marketing roles. She is currently the CMO at Moz, where she and her teams handle everything that is "funnel-related," such as driving traffic to Moz's site, converting that traffic into product trials, and reducing customer churn. Annette really loves frosting. Follow her on Twitter: @ahpromes
8:45-9:15pm	Networking break
9:15-9:20pm	A Creative Endeavor Inspires & Lengthens a Life with Ralph Legnini from DragonSearch Ralph Legnini - Senior Creative Strategist at DragonSearch in NY - is an Aikido 5th Degree Black Belt Sensei, former Saturday Night Live music producer, President of the Board of Education in the 2nd largest school district in New York State, funky rock & roll guitar player, and has worked in the recording studio with music icons Mick Jagger, Madonna, David Bowie, Nile Rodgers, & Todd Rundgren. He used these unique combined skills to create a life sustaining environment for a talented 16-year-old boy with incurable cancer. Follow him on Twitter: @ruaralph2
9:20-9:25pm	Finding and Embracing Healthy Eating Habits with Carrie Hill from Ignitor Digital Marketing, LLC Carrie Hill is the co-founder and technical SEO expert at Ignitor Digital. She loves cooking, eating, reading, and Eddie Vedder...not necessarily in that order. Follow her on Twitter: @CarrieHill
9:25-9:30pm	I Was Told There Would Be Hoverboards. with Dan Petrovic from DEJAN Dan Petrovic, the managing director of DEJAN, is one of Australia's best-known names in the field of search engine optimization. Dan is a web author, innovator, and a highly-regarded search industry event speaker. Follow him on Twitter: @dejanseo
9:35-9:40pm	The Day I Disremembered with Chris Hanson from 3GEngagement Chris Hanson has been involved in digital marketing since 2006 and is currently Founder and CEO of 3GEngagement. After Hanson worked as a Park Ranger, lived without electricity, raced sled dogs, and lived in Alaska, he felt that digital marketing was the next obvious career move. Follow him on Twitter: @FollowUPsuccess
9:40-9:45pm	What Did You Expect in an Opera, a Happy Ending? with Chrissi Reimer from Three Deep Marketing A Green Bay native and Minneapolis transplant, Chrissi Reimer spends her days working as an SEO at Three Deep Marketing. Most nights, Chrissi can be found experimenting with different ways to prepare arugula, trying new brews, or taste-testing every ice cream option in the Twin Cities. Follow her on Twitter: @chrissireimer
9:45-9:50pm	The Best Practices in Cooking Hot Dogs with Josh Couper from Rafflecopter Josh Couper is the director of customer happiness at Rafflecopter and long time hot dog aficionado. Follow him on Twitter: @josh_couper
9:50-9:55pm	Raising My Parents with Jen Lopez from Moz Jen Sable Lopez is the Director of Community at Moz. She is a renowned Community Strategist who started her marketing career as a technical SEO. Jen is a self-proclaimed geek and faux vegetarian, and she prides herself in having kicked colon cancer’s butt at the young age of 37. Follow her on Twitter: @jennita
9:55-10:00pm	Stoned Nerd versus the Four-Legged Home Invaders with Ian Lurie from Portent, Inc. Ian Lurie is founder and CEO of Portent, Inc., a search, social and content agency that helps clients become weird, useful, and significant. He's also a renowned raccoon wrangler. Follow him on Twitter: @portentint

Garage Party: Wednesday night

There ain't no party like a Moz party, and our annual bash at the Garage is always a blast. Have one last hurrah with us before heading home and back to work.

For those who've never been to the Garage, there's something for everyone: bowling, pool, and karaoke. Plus, a ton of food and drinks—including our featured MozCow Mule Mocktail, as well as well liquor, beer, house wine, and of course, our friend H2O. So whether you're singing your heart out, playing for the corner pocket, bowling a turkey, or just chatting with your new friends, we'll see you there.

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Coming in early? See and explore Seattle!

MozCon-adjacent activities

The following events are MozCon-adjacent, meaning they aren't hosted by Moz and attendees must arrange and pay for their adventures.

Alki Kayak Tours

Paddle around Elliott Bay! At 2:30pm Sunday, for $49/per person, you can head out on the water and make new MozCon friends. You can easily catch the water taxi at Pier 50 ($4.75 one-way) from Downtown to West Seattle. Alki tours is located right next to the West Seattle ferry terminal for your convenience.

Local Craft Tours

Take a distillery tour at 12pm Sunday and learn about Seattle's unique craft culture. Conveniently, the tour leaves from the Grand Hyatt Hotel. You can call (206) 455-3740 to reserve your spot on the tour, which costs $87.50/per person.

Seattle Mariners vs. Los Angeles Angels

Love baseball? Come see Seattle's home team play. The Mariners game starts at 1:10pm, and you can see them take on the Angels for $17/per person on the View Level. You must purchase your ticket before 5pm July 10 in order to get the MozCon deal. Enter 'MOZCON' as your special offer code.

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Citywide events

• Ballard SeafoodFest, Saturday, July 11, 11am-10pm
• Chinatown Seafair Parade, Sunday, July 19, 7-9pm
• Covington Days Festival, Saturday and Sunday, July 18 and July 19, 10am-7pm
• Dragon Fest, Saturday, July 11, 12-8pm
• Kent Cornucopia Days, Friday-Sunday, July 10-July 12, 10am-8pm
• Kirkland Uncorked, Friday-Sunday, July 17-19
• Mercer Island Summer Celebration, Saturday and Sunday, July 11 and 12, 10am-10:30pm
• PCC Natural Markets Seafair Milk Carton Derby, Saturday, July 11, 9am-3pm
• Polish Festival Seattle, Saturday, July 11, 12-8pm
• Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow, Friday-Sunday, July 17-19
• Seattle Bon Odori, Saturday and Sunday, July 18 and July 19
• Shoreline Classic Car Show, Sunday, July 19, 10am-3pm
• Wallingford Family Parade & Festival, Saturday, July 11, 11am-5pm
• Wedgwood Art Festival, Saturday and Sunday, July 11 and 12, 10am-5pm
• West Seattle Summer Fest, Friday-Sunday, July 10-12, 10am-6pm
• ZICO Seafair Stand Up Paddleboard, an Urban Surf Competition, Saturday, July 11, 9am-3pm

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Mozzers recommend their favorite Seattle destinations!

Agua Verde, recommended by Rachael Kloek

"Agua Verde serves great Mexican food in a beautiful lakefront setting. You can rent paddleboards and kayaks right under the restaurant to paddle your way around Lake Union."

Ballard brewery blocks, recommended by Chris Lowe

"A dozen really good breweries all within a few blocks of each other: Stoup, Reubens, Red Envelope, Populuxe, Peddler, Maritime, etc., etc. You can easily walk from one brewery to another. Bonus is that most of these breweries host food trucks on the weekends. The area is also just a few blocks from downtown Ballard and the Burke Gilman Trail."

Ballard Locks, recommended by Renea Nielsen

"The Ballard Locks are a bit of a trek from downtown Seattle (~ 45 min. by bus), but they are a perfect Seattle maritime adventure. The Locks abut a beautiful park and show off Seattle's maritime history. If you're lucky, you may even find some sea lions playing in one of the closed Locks."

Pike Place Market, recommended by Erica McGillivray

"May seen like a 'touristy' spot, but Pike Place Market actually thrives on local business. Every day, there's a farmer's market, flowers galore, and artisans on everything from cheese and spices to woodworking and jewelry. There are hidden shops (at least three bookstores) and a ton of great food."

Elliot Bay Books, recommended by Rand Fishkin

"One of the best indie bookstores in the country, stocked with good stuff to buy and read, and there's a lovely cafe, too."

Ferry ride, recommended by Nemecia Kaloper

"Takes you to such cool places and allows you to see the city from different view and get a taste of our awesome islands! It requires usually at least 1/2 a day, but is well worth it to be able to hop over and have lunch somewhere other than the city. It's easy to never take the trip, but well worth it if you do. I recommend Bainbridge in particular and Nola Cafe."

The Fremont Troll, recommended by Kevin Loesken

"The Fremont Troll, and Fremont in general, perfectly sums up what's great about Seattle. The troll itself is an amazing piece of art. It's also near the Lenin Statue and close to a lot of interesting bars, restaurants, and shops."

Rodeo Donuts!, recommended by David Lee

"Best donuts ever. Even better than Voodoo in Portland, OR. This needs to be a 150 characters long so once again, best donuts ever. I really like the donuts here. Don't go to Krispy Kreme or Top Pot."

Vivace: the Cafe Nico, recommended by Abe Schmidt

"The Cafe Nico best coffee drink in this city. Orange/nutmeg/ cinnamon paired with the greatest espresso pull in the country (only machine in the world capable of the 'perfect' espresso shot)."

Starbucks Roastery, recommended by Ben Simpson

"Just a few blocks from the convention center, the Starbucks Roastery is one of biggest new attractions in Seattle. Why? To start, walking it it feels like Willy Wonka had one to many espresso shots and got inspired. Starbucks pulled together its best baristas from around the country to put together some amazing craft coffee creations. And to top it all off, they've got a Serious Pie on location making all of their delicious food. If you do nothing else during your visit, the Starbucks Roastery is an absolute must!"

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And Mozzer favorite restaurants and bars opened since last MozCon

• Trove, 500 E Pike St
• Nacho Borracho, 209 Broadway E
• Kukai Ramen & Izakaya, 320 E Pine St
• Kracken Congee, 88 Yesler Way

Looking for more options? Don't miss our quintessential post from last year, our mega post from 2013, Rand's personal recommendations, and Jon Colman's Seattle coffee guide.

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Buy your ticket now!

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!