We’ve been pretty busy here at AuthorityLabs lately. It’s probably about time we start letting everyone in on some of the cool things we have going on.

Rank Tracking Interface

As many of you know, our old (nearly 3 years now) system has hiccups from time to time. We’ve improved performance on that quite a bit lately and we’ve had good feedback on that. Toward the end of 2011, we started planning and development on an entirely new interface and backend. The new system will result in even more reliability, speed, and eventually a lot of cool new features. We will be looking to migrate some existing accounts to the new system within the next month or so and at that point, all new accounts will be on the new system. Here’s a sneak peek at the new look.

Partner API

Our developers have been working long hours to add new features and engines to our Partner API. Just supplying organic SERP data hasn’t been good enough for us. Our goal is to give our partners everything they need to build their own tools, reporting, and decision making systems.

More Engines and Locales

We now support ALL official versions of Google, Yahoo! and Bing, so those of you who have clients asking for rankings on Google Maldives, you can now provide that data.

We’re also excited to tell you we’ve added Yandex and Baidu to the Partner API which are currently in beta. We tested these pretty extensively and they seem to be working great. Simply send over the engine parameter ‘baidu’ or ‘yandex’ with a keyword and you can start getting data from those. Drop us a note if there’s more you’d like to see parsed out of those SERPs into the JSON version.

Supported Locale API Calls

Our API now has endpoints for you to easily digest and update the locale codes we support. Provided within the response are human readable descriptions along with the URL for the usable version of that engine. These should be very useful for easily updating locales within your app, and easily providing your users human friendly drop-downs.

http://api.authoritylabs.com/supported/google.json

http://api.authoritylabs.com/supported/bing.json

http://api.authoritylabs.com/supported/yahoo.json

http://api.authoritylabs.com/supported/yandex.json

http://api.authoritylabs.com/supported/baidu.json

Google Ads

Several of our partners asked for ad information and we’re now parsing ads out of Google’s search results pages and providing that to you in an easy to parse JSON format. There’s a new section below the ‘serp’ called ‘ads’ which you’ll find JSON formatted Google ads if they appeared on the SERP we were served. Click here for an example.

As part of that ad data, we’re pulling out the destination_url, headline, raw_destination_url, description, ad_location and display_url. We give you both a clean version of the destination URL and the actual one Google’s serving. We’re also giving you the location of the ad found on the page.

Queue Status

The Partner API has an endpoint that allows you to get your account limits and currently hourly usage (api.authoritylabs.com/account/{id}.json). Now included in that is the current hours to deliver on the delayed queue. This is really useful for understanding roughly how full our queues are; specifically, how long you can expect between POSTs to the delayed queue and when results are available. The values in these fields will either be a 6, 12, 18 or 24. When a 12 is returned you can expect results to be available between 6 and 12 hours after you POST. When a 24 is returned you can expect results to be available between 18 and 24 hours after you POST. This should give you a good idea of how busy we are at any given time. We’re also returning this data when you make a successful POST response if you’d like to grab it from that.

We’ve also added a system message within the JSON for account limits and queue status. A lot of you have internal dashboards for various data collection tasks. Now you can easily stay on top of the status of your account and the Partner API as a whole while getting updates from us directly in what you look at daily.

Partner API Tools

One of our goals is to make our data as easy to access as possible. As a result of that, we’ve posted several packages in different languages to help get you going on using the Partner API. Here’s a list of what we have so far:

Node.js

Python

Ruby

PHP

We’re also working on a basic turnkey tool that can easily be installed on your own server to get you started on the Partner API with pretty much no development time needed. The first one we will roll out is in PHP and should be in beta testing sometime in the next couple weeks. If you’d like to get started on the Partner API and become a beta tester for the new PHP rank tracking tool we’re working on, contact us for more information. If you sign up for an account and get started as a beta tester, we’ll throw some free Partner API usage your way.

Other Cool Stuff

Our partners are constantly rolling out new tools and reporting based off of our API data. Usually those tools are in-house and private. One partner recently decided to take their internal tools and turn them into an app that lets anyone check their rankings. Where I Rank was launched earlier this week and from what we’ve seen, it’s a pretty cool tool for quickly checking rankings on a few keywords without having to wade through pages and pages of SERPs.

If you’ve built some cool tools with our data and would like to have it featured here, shoot us a message and we’ll get on it.

Design Intern

AuthorityLabs is looking for a design intern to help with various design projects we have from time to time. We’ve posted design jobs in quite a few places and hopefully we’ll end up with someone that fits our needs. If you know someone looking to get some experience, please have them submit their resume.

One of the biggest problems I see clients and newbie SEOs make is choosing either the wrong keywords to track or not enough. Here are a few scenarios I see frequently that annoy me to no end:

• Branded terms that the site’s either already ranking #1 for
• Too short of a list that only includes keywords client is obsessing over
• Terms that have no (or very little) search volume

I won’t go into all the reasons these are subpar scenarios, save to say you want to track terms that:

• Get good search volume
• You have a chance at ranking on page 1 for, even if you don’t now
• Have gotten results for you

There are a number of tools I use to get these terms from. Two are free and the others are paid but well worth the money.

Free Tools

Your Analytics Software

Whether you’re using Google Analytics or a paid service, you can get the keywords you’re getting organic traffic for. These are terms you should consider tracking.

What I normally do is pull organic terms from the past six months, filter out branded terms, and run those through the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to check search volume.

To get your top organic keywords from Google Analytics, you can navigate to Standard Reporting > Traffic Sources > Search > Organic or open a custom report I created for you. The report I created pulls in your visits, bounce rate, total goal completions, and revenue (essential if you have revenue tracking set up). That’s everything I look at when determining the potential of a keyword.

Once you open the report, you’ll want to filter out your branded keywords though. Just choose the most common variations of your keyword, and follow these instructions to apply a line item filter to your report:

The vertical line you see in step 5 is called a pipe character. It means OR in regex and can be found on the key just above the Enter/Return key on your keyboard. If you want to learn how to rock regular expressions (what the cool kids call regex), I wrote a blog post on how to use regex and some of the most common uses for them in Google Analytics.

Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

Both Google and Bing offer webmaster tools that are chock full of great data, not the least of which is their Queries report. This report gives you the top search terms that you’ve shown up in searches for (AKA impressions). It also tells you clickthrough rate (CTR), as well as a few other nuggets, like average position. (Yum!)

I’ll walk you through how to get your top query terms (geek speak for keywords) from GWT for simplicity’s sake and then tell you how to find the same report in Bing.

1. Navigate to Your site on the web > Search queries.
2. Click the Filter button at the top of the report to check out your options.
3. In the example below, the client is mostly focusing on web searches and has a business that primarily is US-based, so I applied those filters. Filtering out queries with fewer than 10 clicks just helps keeps your data clean and relevant.



4. Click the Apply button to activate the filter.
5. Just below the chart, keep the Basic button selected and click Download this table.

To get the same report from BWT, simply click the Traffic tab at the top, which lands you on the Traffic Summary report. Then you can click the Export button sitting on the top-right corner of the Rank and Traffic Stats table.

One thing I love to do with this data is look for keywords a site is right on the cusp on page one for (or even page two if it has good search volume) and begin to target those terms. But if you only relied on keywords you’re actually getting traffic for, you’ll miss some of these opportunities.

Tangent: One time I was working with a client who was absolutely obsessed over and for good reason — it had a local exact match search volume of 40k searches/mo. BUT I discovered from their GWT report that they were in position 12 for a term that garnered 1.4 million searches/month. Unfortunately, they were so busy arguing over if they were getting filtered or penalized, they missed the opportunity to land that keyword. When I checked again a month later, they had missed the boat. So sad. I’m sorry if you were expecting a happy ending.

Paid Tools

SEMRush

One of my most absolute favorite tools in the world is SEMRush. I use it for all kinds of competitive data dives. What it does is scrape both Google and Bing for a site and generates a list of the keywords it ranks on the first two pages for. The beauty of it is, not only does it tell you the rank for that keyword but also the landing page. OMG, the actionable insights you could cull from that beautiful data…

[Stay focused, Annie. Remember the steps...]

It’s outside the scope of this post, which is already getting mad long, to go into all the great ways you can use SEMRush data (sucks, right?), but I definitely pull the terms from this list to make sure we’re tracking the powerhouses the site is currently ranking for. And, again, search for keywords a site is right on the cusp of greatness for.

To run a report, follow these simple steps:

1. Enter site you’re searching for.
2. Choose search engine.
3. Click on Full Report (You have to have a subscription. See prices.)
4. Click one of the export options sitting on the upper-right corner of the report.

There are so many different ways you can reorder your data in Excel, to choose which keywords to prioritize.

Open Site Explorer or Majestic

You may be saying to yourself, Annie, what kind of fast one are you trying to pull here? Everyone knows those tools are for backlink research, not keyword research!

Well, if you think about it (and few apparently do), if you’ve been doing link building, you want to make sure you’re tracking the optimized terms you’ve been building for — or what other sites link to your site with. And both of these tools provide a list of the anchors pointing back to your site. (An “anchor” is simply the text in a link that points back to your site, like “prices” in the link a few paragraphs due north.)

Open Site Explorer

To get to this report from Open Site Explorer, you have to have an SEOmoz membership. You can see prices here. Provided you have that, follow these steps to get your Anchor Text report:

1. Stroll on over to Open Site Explorer, enter your site into the search box, and click the Search button.
2. Click the Anchor Text tab.
3. Choose all pages on this root domain from the filter dropdown and click the Filter button.
4. Click the Download CSV link.
5. Order your anchors by your priorities in Excel and cherry pick the anchors you want to add.

Majestic

One advantage to using Majestic is the report is free if you own the site. I’ll show you were to get yours in the steps below:

1. Search for a site and click the Create Report button.
2. From the Create Report page, you will have the option to grab the report for free if you control the site. If you’re doing research for a site you don’t own, you’ll need to pony up for the service.



3. Most of the time you’ll want to choose a Domain Level report. This will give you a list of anchors to your whole site, if you own multiple subdomains.
4. Click the Create Report button.
5. Navigate to the Reports page by following the link provided to you.
6. Find your report and click on it (once it’s finished being analyzed).
7. From the Summary Reports dropdown at the top of the page, choose Anchor.



8. Click the Export report CSV link in the bottom-left corner of the report.
9. Just like OSE, order your anchors by your priorities in Excel and cherry pick the anchors you want to add.

Pulling It All Together

Once you have all of the keywords you want to monitor, then you can drop these in to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, 100 at a time. Or use Richard Baxter’s cool Excel plugin, if you have an API key.

Before I end this ridiculously long post, I’m just going to hit one point about the Google Keyword Tool. I’ve seen people who were supposed to be advanced SEOs screw these settings up, which can render your keyword research pretty useless.

That said, here are the settings I recommend customizing before you hit the Search button. Some of them have to be unhidden, but they’re well worth the extra effort.

So do yourself a favor and update the keywords you’re tracking. You could be really underselling your services or missing out on great traffic opportunities!

While we strive to offer perfect, uninterrupted data, there are times where unexpected issues can result in delays or gaps in ranking data. This is typically a rare occurrence but when it does happen, we end up receiving a few inquiries requesting that we fill the gaps in the data. Historically, it has been our policy that if we are unable to get or process data, we show honest reporting within our interface so that people understand that we ran into issues. The little yellow triangles aren’t fun for us and definitely aren’t fun for our users.

Changes to Retrieving Data

The past couple weeks have been somewhat trying for us and we have had to do a bit of soul searching. For two years now, we’ve had a team of children working 16 hour days typing search queries into the engines and manually recording the rank of each and every site in our system. This has worked well for the most part except for various organized “ditch days” that are usually the real reason for gaps in data. Two weeks ago, the kids decided they were entitled to going on spring break and everything fell apart. We’ve been working on catching up since then and with all of the headaches it caused everyone, we are taking steps to terminate all of our manual search staff.

Introducing Random Ranking

Since we know that adding more automation will likely result in some bugs and potential gaps in data, we have decided to introduce a new feature called Random Ranking. As many of our users have noted, it can be quite frustrating when their clients end up unnecessarily stressed out and wondering what happened to their rankings. For this reason, we are adding Random Ranking, which will allow our users to add completely random numbers to their reports by simply clicking a new link that is being added to the interface. This feature is still in beta and very basic. Using it on a well ranked site may result in unhappy clients so we recommend being very careful when using it.

Future features that will be added as part of Random Ranking:

• Ranking ranges – set a range of numbers to randomize the rankings within
• Auto fill random numbers when we run into errors processing results
• Instant #1 – make yourself look like a rock star SEO by faking #1 rankings for your clients

We’re excited about this new feature and hope that everyone benefits from it. Initial tests show that it’s pretty sweet. Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions about it.

Recently I made the following tweet:

My gripe seemed to resonate with some of my followers, who retweeted and responded, sharing similar sentiments and lamenting about people who hit them up for favors. I’m getting a bit tired of the “Scumbag Steve” people who only get in touch with me when they need something. Last time I checked, something that does that isn’t considered a friend, it’s defined as a parasite.

He doesn't even offer up a "Thanks, brah," either.

I’m sure you’re all too familiar with the drill: you receive an email out of the blue from a family member, acquaintance, old high school buddy, or a distant colleague whom you’ve met once at a conference four years ago. The ballsier emails cut to the chase — no half-ass pleasantries here, they need your expertise and they can’t be bothered with a polite “Hello, how’ve you been?” The subject line is a curt “Can you help me out with something” or “Take a look at this real quick for me,” falsely insinuating that the thing they want help with is something so quick and simple that you’ll barely need to spend five minutes on it, so why wouldn’t you throw your buddy a bone?

You scan the email. All your “friend” wants is an in-depth site audit, a free copy of your book, your consulting services on the house, step-by-step guidelines for how to build a robust website that will be wildly successful, or free access to tools or code that you spent weeks or months perfecting. That’s it. Surely you can spare that for an old pal, right?

Usually I relent, feeling obligated because the person in need is a family member or an old friend. So I spend a half hour or more doing research on his or her behalf, offering up my advice in a nicely formatted email or, even better, a well organized word document. I fire off my reply and wait for a courtesy “Thanks so much! This is really helpful and I greatly appreciate it. We should get together sometime and catch up so I don’t seem like I only contact you when I need something from you!” response.

The bad parasites counter back with a simple and curt “Thanks,” while the worst offenders don’t even respond at all, because they’ve gotten what they wanted from you and can’t be bothered to act like a decent human being and show an iota of gratitude. Scumbag Steve returns to his cave to hibernate for another several months before rearing his sleepy, ungrateful head to hit you up once again for free advice.

I’ve given site audits to people who never responded, not even with a half-ass “thank you.” I’ve provided folks with references to my friends when asked if I know any good developers, designers, consultants, etc. for a specific project, tell my friends to expect to be contacted for potential work, and apologize to my friends when they’re never contacted.  I’ve given advice to someone who asked me if there are any sites out there “like YouTube” and “Could I build a site that’s like YouTube but maybe 1/5th the traffic” and “Wait, how could hosting a YouTube-like video site cost that much money, that makes no sense,” and had this same person argue that “anyone who knows anything about Photoshop knows that Obama’s birth certificate is fake.” Bitch, you’re dumb enough to think a YouTube clone would be cheap to host but expect me to believe you’re some grand Photoshop wizard? I don’t think so.

Guess what? I’m tired of being used and abused, and I’m sure you are too. There’s a difference between asking someone for help and expecting it. Just because we are friends, colleagues, or family doesn’t mean I am obligated to help you. Yes, I know that I do “Internet stuff.” I know we sat next to each other in 9th grade Geometry. I know that I’m your sister and you drove me to the movies before I had my driver’s license. But I’m also a human being. I’m not some vending machine that shits out advice every time you feed me a quarter (and I don’t even get a quarter!). My purpose in life is not to sit in front of my computer waiting for you to email me for help so I can spring onto my keyboard and eagerly comply, like a doting dog waiting at the front door for its master to come home and pat me on the head.

You want my help? Here’s how you get it:

1. You interact with me outside of your requests. None of this Halley’s Comet “one email every year” bullshit — you want my help, you’re gonna have to put in the time. Some sort of interaction, whether it’s the occasional “How’re ya doing” email, a tweet thrown my way, hell, even a “like” on my Facebook status will show me that you’re someone who’s at least feigning a relationship, however superficial it may be. You don’t actually need to know magic, you just need to fool your audience.
2. You scratch my back. Be available for help in return. If this relationship is a one-way street, pretty soon the more useful party will go “Wait a minute, I think I’m getting a raw deal here” and realize that you’re not pulling your weight. Offer up something you’re good at. If Internet marketing or coding ain’t your thing, throw a gift card, a baked good, or a hot meal your friend’s way. If your buddy feels appreciated, he’s more likely to help you again in the future.
3. You’re a decent human being. The simplest rule of all that everyone seems to forget. What happened to “please” and “thank you”? A simple follow up is common courtesy. “Hey, thanks for the referrals. They didn’t end up fitting with what I was looking for, but I really appreciate you sending those contacts my way!” “Thanks for the advice! Take a look at some of the changes I implemented after going through your notes — they really improved the look and feel, so thanks again.” And so on. Would it kill you to show some gratitude? I’m tired of a society that’s become too selfish, too egotistical, too greedy. You’re not entitled to anything; you earn that shit and you thank the people who helped get you there.

If you’re still confused, it all boils down to simple rules you learned in kindergarten: be nice, say “please” and “thank you,” and share. If you can’t even do those three little things, you’re a selfish asshole who doesn’t deserve help. If you can, then I will gladly offer you some assistance. It’s what friends are for, right?

January is almost here and the holidays are mostly behind us (minus one last drunken evening where you surround yourself with Woo Girls and toast the last year before the Mayans go apocalyptic on our asses), which means that you only have a few precious days left to enjoy Lexus’s “December to Remember” Sales Event commercials. You may already be familiar with them: they’re basically a series of commercials advertising Lexus cars. The website even urges you to “give that special someone the gift they’ve always deserved, and make this December one to remember.”

What cracks me up about this promotion isn’t the idea of giving someone a car for Christmas (an act of generosity I won’t be able to pull off until the startup I work for starts making mad dolla dolla bills y’all), it’s the fact that the commercials each center on the idea that everybody can immediately recognize Lexus’s self-appointed “You’re getting a Lexus, bitches!” jingle and creams their pants when they hear it.

Here are a few of the Lexus ads in case you haven’t seen them:

“Hey, this elevator music sounds a lot like the Lexus jing–waaaaait a minute…”

I like how the song was put together by the username “Dad of the Year”–how modest.

The Lexus YouTube account is trying to make this song a “thing” to the point where they state on each video, “When you hear that song, you know it’s time for the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event.” I can only deduce that they hire trucks to drive through affluent neighborhoods and pump that jingle out like some sort of One Percenter Ice Cream Man to get rich people to develop a Pavlovian reaction once they hear it.

Truck speakers: “Dum dum dum dum da da bum bum bum bahhhhhhhh…..”

Rich Ol’ Moneybags: “Hmm, I really need a new Lexus for some reason…”

Of course, big brands and catchy jingles are nothing new. Everyone’s familiar with McDonald’s “Ba da ba bah bahhhhh” I’m Lovin’ It tune, and many of us have heard a borderline hysterical woman screeching on the radio “That’s JA-REDDDDD!!! IT CAN ONLY BE JAAAAAAREDDDDDD!” to promote Jared Jewelers. But something about Lexus trying super hard to force this jingle down our throats and make it seem as if everyone knows it by heart seems a little “Are you fucking kidding me,” at least to this middle class girl. They’re the Gretchen Weiner of luxury car ads–”Stop trying to make these jingles happen, Lexus! They’re not going to happen!”

I know, Gretchen. I know.

Then again, perhaps the point is to make the commercials so incredibly cheesy that snarky poor folk like myself make fun of them and inadvertently get the song stuck in their head, which is exactly what happened to me throughout an hour fifteen minute-long run. By the time I was done, I wanted to either kill myself or trade in my Subaru for a Lexus, I couldn’t decide which. Or maybe Lexus is trying the “Gabbo” approach to marketing, in which they hype up something that nobody knows about but gets excited for nonetheless. “You’re not familiar with the Lexus jingle? Well, of course you wouldn’t know it, you Camry-driving commoner! I shall laugh at your ignorance while polishing my monocle! “

"Your welfare ears couldn't possibly handle the sublime sound of the Lexus jingle!"

The commercials are cheesy, sure, but you often get that type of marketing around the holidays. The real question is whether or not these ads are effective. At first I thought no because of how ludicrous the forced jingles are, but the more I thought about it, the more I accepted Lexus’s “Emperor’s New Clothes” marketing tactic. Poor people are probably thinking “WTF is up with this jingle, I’ve never heard it before. Is this a rich person thing, like a ‘wealthy folk only’ song?”, while rich people are all “Wait, I’m rich. Should I recognize this song? …uh, ‘cuz if so, I totally do. It’s the Lexus song! The one we rich people know…I’m gonna buy a Lexus, that’s how well I know this song.”

So in this marketing case study, Lexus tried to make “fetch” happen and maybe it worked. Then again, maybe it didn’t, but either way, it was intriguing enough for me to make fun of it in a blog post, so at least it got people talking (the ol’ “There’s no such thing as bad press” tactic). As you ponder how you feel about the “December to Remember” ads, keep in mind that if you like them, there are only a few days left to buy yourself a fancy new car, and if you hate them, there are only a few days left before you don’t have to put up with attractive Burberry-wrapped couples squealing with delight when they see their new luxury sedan adorned with a ridiculously gigantic bow. As for me, I’ve got to take my Impreza in to get the “check engine” light dealt with and hope for the best…