Dana DiTomaso is the founder and president of Kick Point , a Canadian-based digital marketing agency. She is well known for her ingenious and innovative presentations on tracking and analytics, as well as other growth marketing strategies. She's presented at SMX, Local Search Summit, and Engage, and we're thrilled to welcome her back to this year’s MozCon Virtual where she’ll discuss modern web development that puts SEO first. Check out what she has to share ahead of this year’s show! Secure your seat Question: 2020 was quite the year, what were you up to this past year? Any surprises or favorite projects you worked on? Dana: Like many people I actually ended up moving! I now live on Vancouver Island and I can practically see the USA from my house — not that I’ve been able to visit. I also completed my first course , hopefully of many, for LinkedIn Learning on the topic of technical SEO. My next course is already in progress and will be covering how to transition from...

Have you googled yourself or your company recently? I bet you have, but this doesn’t mean you have a branded search optimization strategy. Brand-driven search is so much more than URLs you see ranking for your brand name. It’s an ongoing process that will result in higher conversions and more predictable buying journeys. Let’s start from the beginning. What is branded search? A branded (also referred to as brand-driven) search query is one that contains your brand or product name. Branded search includes search queries that include personal, brand-driven words, like your CEO or writers’ names. Why should your branded search be your marketing priority? There seems to be an obvious answer to this question. After all, great SEO starts with your brand , so branded SEO research should be any company’s priority. Yet, it’s quite unbelievable how many brands completely ignore search queries. Branded search is crucial for several important reasons: Brand-driven search is usually high...

We love you, Russ. There are so many ways to remember you, endless facets to who you were and your impact on SEO. Where do I even begin? You were the funniest guy in the room. You would gear up for a joke with that wry smile and sparkle in your eye, and we always knew what was coming. Your sense of humor was keen and clever and ever-present. I remember being ill and jetlagged on the way to put on a mini-MozCon for a valued, strategic client — you made the 2.5-hour winter car ride pass by in a breeze with your entertaining and hilarious stories. You could make charming conversation about anything and with anyone. Listening and laughing with delight to your stories about growing up as an identical twin, current events, memories from past MozCons, and ideas about what we could build at Moz next, you transformed my tired and cranky mood into happy and creative energy. Your spirit and laughter was infectious. You were brilliant. Our longtime friend, links API power user, and collaborato...

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts. Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14! Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts.  So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVI...

You probably know of rising SEO star Areej AbuAli from her work leading the Women in Tech SEO  (WTS) community, for her presentations at conferences like SMX or BrightonSEO, or for her insightful and informative tweets . And now, we're so excited to welcome her to the MozCon Virtual stage for the first time!  Before the show, we talked with Areej about the success of WTS, what drew her to SEO, and what viewers can look forward to in her MozCon presentation.  Read the full interview below, and don't forget to grab your ticket to see Areej and our other amazing speakers at MozCon Virtual 2021:  Secure Your Seat Question: 2020 was quite the year, what were you up to this past year? Any surprises or favorite projects you worked on? Areej: Yes, it was definitely quite a year! I have a lot to be grateful for. I'm healthy, I have a job, and I'm surrounded by people I love. I know it's not the same for others.  In terms of my favorite 2020 project, I managed to...

“They weave a web of reciprocity, of giving and taking. In this way, the trees all act as one because the fungi have connected them. Through unity, survival. All flourishing is mutual...all are the beneficiaries of reciprocity.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer,  Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants Local business communications options are rapidly expanding, and customers are trying to reach out to your business for help in many ways. Simultaneously, any local business you're marketing has multiple options for initiating welcome outreach. Where can we look for inspiring models and methodologies to help us build communications bridges with the communities we serve? The model of nature relies on abundance and connectivity. Instead of standing alone, one tree is connected to all the others in its forest via fungal bridges, through which trees provide carbohydrates to mushrooms, and they return the favor with water and minerals. Reciprocity...

Ahead of her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation, Amanda Milligan walks through three components that can make your content newsworthy enough to attract links: data, emotion, and impact. Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Amanda's full presentation — A Live Guide to Finding & Filling the Gaps in Your Link Strategy — along with our other incredible speakers! Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hi, everyone. I am Amanda Milligan, the Growth Director at Fractl , and today I want to talk to you about how to make newsworthy content. My career has been in marketing and communications, but my degree was in journalism. So this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  So my MozCon presentation is actually on how to perform a link gap analysis, which basically means how to find out who your competitors are getting links from and then how to brainstorm...