Here, first time on Tips2secure, Russ Jones is with us. He is working as Principal Search Scientist at MOZ company. It is really very exciting for having this kind of biggest personality on our blog. In this Interview, he will suggest our readers many new things and reveal many unknown facts to bloggers.
So let's start with him,
Ques: Tell us a little about yourself.
Russ Jones:
Hey, I am Russ Jones. I live in NC with my wife and 3 daughters. I have been
practicing SEO since 2005 when I joined Virante, Inc. (since rebranded as Angular) where I became the Chief Technology Officer. I served in that position for 10 years prior to joining Moz.
Ques: When did you join Moz?
Russ Jones:
I joined Moz in August of 2015, having been an active member of the community for the better part of the last decade and a subscriber to both their tools and data during that time.
Ques: What is the history and background of Moz?
Russ Jones:
Moz, or at least its predecessors, has been around for a long time, starting back in 1981 as a marketing/print/design shop by Gillian Meussig, Rand's mom, and has become the leading provider of SaaS for search engine optimization, local,
social media and content marketing across the globe. Rather than recite the details in this interview, Moz has an
excellent history here.
Ques: What is SEO in your words?
Russ Jones:
SEO is persuasion of both man and machine to
improve performance in search.
Ques: According to you using Grey Hat SEO is ethical or unethical?
Russ Jones:
I think, by definition, grey hat (and black hat for that matter) SEO would be unethical. However, the real question is which techniques under which circumstances fall under that category. For example, I could imagine a scenario where spamming the search engines is completely white hat if it corrects a dangerous result, like a top 10 filled with malware or false information about proper treatment for an emergency. That being said, I generally try to follow this formal proposition of
search ethics (http://www.thegooglecache.com/white-hat-seo/a-formal-proposition-of-search-ethics/) - One should optimize his/her site only to the degree with which it accurately reflects the objective position it ought to hold.
Ques: Is it possible to rank and gain high DA and PA without backlinks?
Russ Jones:
It is certainly possible to rank for some keywords without DA, PA or backlinks. However, for nearly any commercial term, some backlinks will be required. Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) are both built on Mozscape's link metrics alone, so you cannot influence those metrics without backlinks.
Read also,
New Strategy to Create Quality Backlinks
Ques: These days, people are using cheap services from Fiverr to build backlinks and sellers on fiverr also claim to provide ranking within a week or in a month. What would you like to say about this scenario?
Russ Jones:
I have certainly seen the options on Fiverr and have tested some myself (always be researching!. It is possible to acquire rankings quickly through a number of metrics, one of which is purchasing links from low quality services. However, these results will be short lived, if attained at all. An important question all webmasters should ask themselves before trying any technique is this: how hard is it for my competitor to duplicate this? If it only took you 15 minutes and $5, it will only take them the same amount. Webmasters should focus on trying to create barriers for their competition, not just speed bumps.
Ques: What are the tools which newbies should use in their SEO practices?
Russ Jones:
Everyone new to SEO needs to start with the free basics - Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Keyword Planner. However, you will quickly find that these don't provide the detail of recommendations one needs to succeed and out-pace your competitors. The next thing they need to do is add an all-in-one suite and stick to it. It doesn't need to be Moz (although I am certainly partial to it). There are a couple of features they need to be looking for - site crawls, rank tracking,
keyword research, and link monitoring. Spend some serious time getting to know the tool you choose to take advantage of as many features as possible. You want to extract every competitive advantage you can out of this tool.
Ques: According to you, what density of keyword is sufficient to avoid keyword stuffing?
Russ Jones:
Wow. There is no reason to keyword stuff at all any longer. You will see little to no incremental improvement in search results by simply adding the same keyword over and over again. Instead, you should be including related terms to increase the overall relevance of the document. You can use tools like
nTopic to help find related words and phrases. In general, you don't need to use your keyword more than 3 times in your page - in the title, meta description, and once in the body.
Ques: How Moz SEO tools help bloggers?
Russ Jones:
There are tons of ways that Moz SEO tools can help bloggers. One of the best new tools is Moz Content (https://moz.com/content/) which will help you discover new content to create on topics that have historically performed well.
Ques: How MOZ SEO tools and software work?
Russ Jones:
Moz's tools build, aggregate, and analyze data in many different ways to offer you valuable information on your site's search performance. For example, Open Site Explorer crawls the web to build a link index which will tell you how you perform relative to competitors and give you insights on how to improve your backlink profile. Other tools, like Moz Analytics crawl your site, check your rankings and mash the data with Google Analytics and other sources to make on-site and off-site recommendations to improve your search engine optimization. We also offer tools like FollowerWonk to improve your social media presence and Moz Content, to boost content marketing strategies.
Ques: Is it necessary to buy Moz Pro or one can also get benefitted by using free version?
Russ Jones:
There is definitely value in our free offerings, but the best value definitely comes from the paid membership. The tools really work best when they have had time to build a dedicated profile of your site and its performance.
Ques: How Moz Pro differs from its Free Version?
Russ Jones:
There is a free 30 day trial which gives you a great look at the value of the pro version. However, those features do expire in 30 days leaving you with the free version features, like only main metrics and 5 backlinks shown in Open Site Explorer. Features like Keyword Difficulty, Moz Analytics, and Spam Analysis are only available in Pro.
Ques: Why bloggers and Web-owners should use the Moz tools?
Russ Jones:
Moz's tools offer a comprehensive, user-friendly approach to improving online marketing. It helps you find the gotcha's of SEO like duplicate content and benchmark your performance over time. Bloggers and website owners have content to write and businesses to run, having a tool monitoring your performance and making smart recommendations for improvements saves them time and helps them be more efficient.
Ques: Would you like to suugest and give some SEO tips to the readers of Tips2secure blog?
Russ Jones:
The best tip I can give to your readers this year is to always think about doing things that are hard for your competitors to reproduce. Don't just do what everyone else is doing. Don't just do what is cheapest or easiest. Do what will be hard to copy. These types of optimizations will give you long term advantages over your competitors.
Ques: What do you think about the work of Tips2scure?
Russ Jones:
It looks like you are doing a good job of producing unique and relevant content for our industry! Good work!
Suresh: Thanks for your appreciation.
Ques: Please suggest something which Tips2secure should improve?
Russ Jones:
More content! You still have some empty labels that need content (http://www.tips2secure.com/search/label/tech). Interviews like this are a great way to start!
Suresh: This issue has been fixed and label 'tech' is replaced by 'technology' and new URL for this label is
http://www.tips2secure.com/search/label/tech.
Ques: At last, what message you would like to give the readers of Tips2secure?
Russ Jones: Always be optimizing!
Interviewed by:
Suresh Kumar
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