Our Partner API currently serves up hundreds of millions of requests per month. Not only are our partners, such as Raven Tools, using it, we are taking advantage of it for getting data into our new interface. Whether you’re new to our Partner API or you’ve been using it for a while, there’s a good chance some of the following tips will help you get more out of our API.

Go Fast

Many people that start out on our API are afraid to POST keywords at full speed. I’ve seen people put 30 second delays between POSTing keywords. The API was built to handle just about anything that can be thrown at it and scales to accommodate the needs of our users. The only real restrictions on how fast you should post are your hourly limits and how fast your servers can process callbacks.

Use Custom Callback URLs

When adding keywords to either our delayed queue or immediate queue, you have the option to send a custom callback URL for us to hit when we have data on that keyword. For the sake of improved performance and easier tracking of callbacks, we recommend passing a URL with an ID that matches up to an ID in your system. This can be a keyword ID or just a POST ID to track which callback matches which post. Running data at scale pretty much makes this a requirement. [Read more...]

Budgeting for analytics is always tricky, especially when the tools you need can take a healthy bite out of your budget. Making sure your SEO budget includes the right product and app for the job is important. Tracking sales and ROI is a vital part of any tool, and there are some big name SEO tools that will get the job done. Spending your SEO budget on tools that will get results and deliver the kind of data you need will lead to increased profitability for your business in the long and short term, if used correctly. But you don’t have to reach for the vodka, like choosing the right tool is some kind of game of Russian roulette. Try to think of it more like Jell-O shots and a friendly game of darts. (An unlucky shot the first time doesn’t mean game over.)

Spending Money on Powerhouse SEO Tools

AuthorityLabs is an all-in-one rank monitoring tool which can track a few, thousands, or even millions of keywords. They offer a free trial with no credit card required, and an in depth tour of the site. The setup is quick and easy, and doesn’t require a degree in marketing or IT to figure out. They make everything simple to understand, while still delivering amazingly powerful, detailed, and easy to analyze results. They can sync domains, track your business’ competition, offer daily graphs and trends, as well as the ability to track results local to your business. Overall, AuthorityLabs is a great value for the power behind it, and the knowledge and skill of their team shines through. The free trial can help you determine whether or not it’s worth your investment.

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Just stop using GoDaddy for hosting. Seriously. They’re no good. If you’re running a site for business and you’re still hosting at GoDaddy, it’s time to hire someone to make your technical decisions for you.

It’s no secret that outsourcing tasks can be a major pain. Most people that I suggest outsourcing to are either afraid of it or had bad experiences and don’t want anything to do with it. It doesn’t have to suck. Over the past 6 years, I’ve managed to refine my process for outsourcing work. The tips below should help anyone to make outsourcing less of a headache and more of a pleasure. The purpose of outsourcing is to free up your time for more important tasks. Make sure that happens.

Communicate Too Clearly

What you think should be perfectly clear may make absolutely no sense to other people. Figure out how to efficiently get what’s in your head into something that even a kid could understand. Use visuals. Take screenshots and use something like Skitch to make notes. Investing a little bit of time in planning and being clear will not only save you time on going back and forth with someone, it will save you money since they won’t end up doing the wrong work.

Don’t Be Afraid to Move On

More often than not, you’ll run into a freelancer that just isn’t cutting it. They may become slow or unresponsive. Their work may just not be up to par with what you need. Don’t waste time trying to make them better. It’s frustrating for them and it can be costly for you.

Assign The Same Task to Multiple Workers

If you need something done quickly and correctly, make sure you have a backup plan. Most of the time, if you’re outsourcing through a site like oDesk, it’s cheap enough to have a couple people on hand that can do the same type of work. If it’s important that you get something completed by a certain deadline, invest in having more than one person take a shot at doing the work. If you’re communicating clearly and you hand the task off to two different workers, you’ve just doubled your chance of having it done when you need it. This can also end up working as a good way of comparing the skills of multiple workers.
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As I sit here working on a new version of the AuthorityLabs site, I’ve started going over my list of what needs to be done prior to launching it. Without using a checklist such as the one below, you’re almost guaranteed to forget at least one important piece of the site. Some of these are WordPress specific, but most are not and can be applied to any site launch. Remember to add any site specific items to your own list. I try to make notes during the development process so that important pieces aren’t missed. It will also take some stress off of you when it comes time to launch.

1. Make sure analytics code is installed and working properly. It sucks to jump into your analytics account to check traffic on your new site and see a big fat zero and realize nothing was ever being tracked.
2. Add WordPress SEO plugin. There are other SEO plugins out there but Yoast’s plugin is the best option currently. Others that I’ve tried are buggy, less than intuitive, or are lacking important features. Set the default values for title & description tags on all page types.
3. If not using WordPress, double check that you’re not duplicating titles, don’t have empty titles or descriptions, and your titles are appropriate for the content of your pages.
4. Proper use of heading tags (h1-h6). Make sure you don’t go crazy with these. I still see sites with 3 or more h1 tags on the page. Maybe it works for somebody, but it’s not semantically correct.
5. Check your links. Use something like Xenu to crawl the site and look for broken or dead links. There’s not much more annoying to a user than clicking a link and not getting what was expected.
6. Custom 404 page. Help users out by making your 404 page useful.

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