Understanding SEOMOZ and how to make improvements to my website

[EGOL]

Why do people worship SEOmoz metrics and are willing to move Heaven and Earth to improve them?

They don't determine your rankings and nobody is going to pay you for getting a good score.

There is more talk in Q&A about improving metrics than there is about improving websites.

Sometimes I think that these metrics are a decoy that keeps people from building a great website.

[RobertFisher]

Speaking of Heaven and Earth, you know you and I worship at the same alter. It is about user experience, content, etc. It's either what's my score, rank, etc. or it's name that uber huge parameter... EMD, Anchor text with keywords, etc. I find that it is easier to be fully holistic in the approach and not worry about that really, really, really important one item that will take me to the promised land! (wow, that promise land part came to me right at the end. I mean, dude, like, uhhh, you know).

PS - I really do think the thing Sergey was saying about the triple hypen link will bring true redemption to the web. (Couldn't help myself.)

[EGOL]

I worship at the same alter..

heh... I saw you Yelping for sushi this morning.

[PhilSmith23]

As explained in the opening discussion I am adding regular unquie content to improve the user experiance.  Over time this will make the website an authority on the products we sell.

Note the word sell.  I am fed up with paying Google for adwords traffic and currently this new website is enjoying a good position.  Of course improving the position even by one place is atractive.

Your comment saying SEOMOZ metrics are not of any interest if this is so why are they here and why are you paying to be a member.

Help me out i don't understand why you knock the system you subscribe to.

SEOMOZ metrics do measure the position in search engines the websites that enjoy a better position than yours have a better set of metrics.

My question still stands  does anyone have any idea how to improve the metrics even if generally it is through content I would just like some direction where to start.

[EGOL]

The most important thing that you can do is to improve your website.

In your topic area or industry what is the most valuable content that you could produce that would be appreciated by your target audience?   If you can identify that and produce best-on-the-web information that is helpful and useful and easy-to-understand then that is the best thing that you can do.

Best-On-The-Web

This type of content is liked, tweeted, linked to, emailed, bookmarked and shared.  That type of activity will bring more people to your site who will like, tweet, email, link, bookmark and share.  This activity can improve your rankings and also improve your metrics.

You can hasten that process by promoting your content so that a larger number of people see it - especially to the people in your topic area or industry who have a voice or who are active in reporting and sharing.

The SEOmoz metrics are a good way to get a numerical gauge of your progress over time.  They can also be used as a way to compare the relative mojo of your site against others.

So, instead of looking to them to light the way to success, you should instead be making a big "to do list" of jobs that will improve your site, getting them done and helping other people discover what you have created.

One of the greatest problems that people have in doing this is that they produce yada yada yada content instead of best-on-the-web in their niche.  So if your content is not making people say WOW!  then it is time to kick up the quality.

Pedestrian content does not get shared.  You need WOW! content for that to happen.  Even if your site is about something as mundane as manure it is still possible to create content that will attract attention and be shared.

[PhilSmith23]

EGOL very much appreciated your last comment I believe that good engaging unqiue content is best and that the metrics are a gauge.

The link metrics will improve because of good content and some regular work looking for the right links.

Do I assume that Damain authority and Mozrank improve because of good content or age of domain.

I keep coming back to metrics because I want to understand what makes them tick.

However your recent answer is in my opinion the right way forward for any website.  Assuming all of the onpage errors and notices are corrected.

[EGOL]

You can learn how these metrics are calculated using the links at the bottom of this post.

In short they are link metrics.

They are not a direct measure of content quality or user engagement.

I believe that a person should be working to improve his website to increase:

-- the amount of time that visitors spend

-- the CTR of your listing in the SERPs

-- the number of people who share your content

-- the number of people who ask for your site by name by typing your domain into a search box or typing it into a chrome address bar

-- the number of times people mention your domain - even if there is no link

The things above are based upon the quality of your content and google can detect them and measure them.  I think that a lot more  than links drive SERPs.

If I was google I would stop using links and use the measures above.

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/mozrank

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/moztrust

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority

Use the SEOmoz metrics to track your link profile over time and to get a gross comparison against other websites.

[RobertFisher]

EGOL

If you don't stop it they are all gonna start worshipping...YOU!

[PhilSmith23]

Egol - Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Rob - I thought the idea was to share good information.

[RobertFisher]

Yes, you are correct. EGOL and I are "poking fun" at one another.