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I'd like to chime in and request a formula too. maybe it's a secret because moz doesn't want competitors using this number... but then, it wouldn't take much (i assume) for someone to reverse engineer the score based on data inputs from moz.... so maybe it's not secret? if not, i'd reallllllllyyyy like to know.
interesting sidenote: i've noticed a range of about +/- 10 points on the difficulty score from a given domain authority with a domain's ability to rank for that keyword 
what type relationship do you see with domain authority and moz difficulty scores?
i'm finding a rule of "tens' usually applies.... meaning if da = 45, then difficulty scores of 40-50 are generally within short term reach (3-6 months of simple onpage optimization and an appropriate # ofinbound links to the page).
your thoughts/data? just trying to get a feel for a consensus
Howdy Shane,
#1. Here's a great moz post about targeting multiple phrases
I think you should use the variations normally throughout the copy. Of course, you want make sure each are used in some way. What I like to do, is break the secondary target keywords into h2's and paragraphs. So for example...
blah blah blah get blue green widgets blah blah blah blah.....
blah blah blah buy blue green widgets blah blah blah blah.....
#2. Here's a WBF video from Cyrus about using partial match and exact match anchor text. Also, here's a bangup post about varying anchor text distributions with pretty charts and stuff.
Simply put, build links for all of them, but naturally (IE also get some branded terms, domain anchor text, 'website', etc, etc.)
I'd also check out your ranking competitors and determine the anchor text distributions of their pages, to make sure you beat them, but aren't too much of an outlier
Does this help Shane?
I definitely second what Peter says.
Create a page for each of your target keywords and then use something like this link finding tool to some quality link building for each of those pages/ target keywords
I'd recommend going a bit further, and running an advanced keyword difficulty report for each of your keywords, and the use the metrics as goals to beat when you do your linkbuilding.
Of course, you can get much, much more advanced with your linkbuilding, I'd recommend reading John Cooper's blog (and subscribing to his newsletter) if you want to start really moving the needle.
I personally try to think of CRO as a process rather than a set of standards, here's the best place to start in my opinion. This is a great quick start, and some pretty good general ideas to help get started.
Will you guys be testing once it's launched? If you want to, David Booth has a great course on for website optimizer on lynda.com.
Here's a few of my bookmarks for the topic, I think you'll find them very useful
Does this help?
Here's a bunch of great videos about how to set it all up
Here's a great pot about setting up AWS if you decide to give it a shot
Good luck to you
I absolutely agree Marc. This is a HUGE Pro Tip that took me a while to fully appreciate.
By targeting the long tail version in the short run, you can build up some traffic, trust and other metrics. But you're also simultaneously targeting the head term so as time goes along you'll likely end up ranking for both (if you've followed a well devised strategy of course)
Thanks Marc, Cheers
I'd say 40-50 is moderate. 30 shouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time if you nail onpage optimization and can get some links. Of course, depending upon budget, time, experience and resources... 40-50 can sometimes be difficult to achieve.
Rather than looking too much at the difficulty score, I'd be looking at the metrics for the top ranking sites and gauging whether or not it's reasonable that I can beat those metrics. Keep in mind, you may not want to pay as much attention to the metrics of an exact match domain or international brand name because you can't duplicate either of them
Pull an advanced keyword report for your top phrases, download them into excel and then add some metrics to them. Once you're done, the big question will be "is it realistic that I can beat these metrics with the allocated (time and money) budget?".
If you can, then I'd pull a "Top Pages Report" with OSE for each ranking website and see what kinds of content and tactics they've employed to get those metrics that are helping them to rank.
Armed with this information, you should have a very clear picture of what needs to be done to win, where to start and if it's realistic or not.
Does this help Zachary?
We use AWS for hosting design images and external files such as js,css, etc. But, we host all of the content images on the main domain because we want Google to give the main domain 'credit' for that content. In my opinion, this is the best route to go with cdn's.
Does this help?
PS. I came across CloudFlare today, but I do not have any experience with them so please let me know if you try it and they work out.
I love this question. Ultimately, it really depends on the budget (both time and money)...
In my experience, it's best to start out with either local or long tail type phrases when launching a new website on a shoe string budget (I'm assuming that's the case here?).
Think of it as a mind-map, or informational hieerarchy... write/ build really great content around a small niche-of-a-topic, and grow towards broader (and higher difficulty) phrases as you get links, PR, attention, etc.
I think Google builds some trust up with websites that are ranking for local/ long tail type phrases (and thus the ranking) and sometimes t's easier (cheaper) to build on that trust and expand rather than starting out too ambitious.
I'm not suggesting that you lose sight and give up on the higher demand/ difficulty phrases, I'm merely recommending that you create a content plan that will allow you to grow into them in a methodical way
Does this help?
Respectfully, I'm not sure I understand either, but I'll take a stab at it...
So you've got an excel sheet with tons of URLs in it, and you need to see how many links point to each one? Or, you need to get a list of all the URLs pointing to them? If so....
Richard Baxter just wrote an awesome post about getting loads of info into excel in a scalable way
You could also build a custom app of sorts to do exactly what you want with the SEOmoz api.
If you're wanting to get a list of URLs that point to each URL in your spreadsheet, I think you're going to have to use the api for now.
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throwing my 2cents in... I do exactly this as well. We also name the images on the page the same
Just in case Rand doesn't see this question... he uses flash
Is that volume exact, phrase or broad match?
If it's exact match, then I'd say, loosely based on these SERP CTR's, you're less than (but close to) normal 
Position #9 = 1.25%
3600 x .0125 = 54.72
I've noticed impression data from Adwords campaigns (that run ALL the time) are closer to about 1/2 that of the exact match predictions in the Adwords Keyword Tool.
Does this help?
What type of info do you want from the analysis? In my experience, we don't really worry about competitors in Adwords. We focus heavily on improving Quality Score though. HINT: start out with a high keyword bid so your historical CTR is on your side.
4 - 1 - 32 - 21 - 33
(40% cut would be fair?)
Adwords will tell you in the keyword reports
We did this for a local client 2 years ago and had dramatic improvement. That said, we also followed it up with a link building campaign (of course). Try it for one of the pages and track any improvements, then roll it out if it works
Does this help?
I realize you're looking for free ones, but if you've got a micro budget, this has some awesome templates.... http://themeforest.net/
wow, really? awesome! Does it make it harder to have different platforms... or will you guys be switching the main site over to RoR someday?
Thanks Jen!
Yeah, it's all pretty much right. I believe the RoR token is likely for the Web App. It won't detect cakephp though, because it's a server-side framework and will therefore execute prior to the page being being returned to a browser. That said, I'm actually surprised it detected RoR.
Their Help Desk is on Zendesk.
If you mean this Q&A? I'm absolutely sure it's custom built with cakephp.
I definitely agree with you about one way links being better in general. However, if Google reduced 100% of the link value.. then blogs like SEOmoz wouldn't do well at all because they link back to tons of sites
This sounds completely legit to me.
Google just doesn't want you to exchange links for the sole purpose of manipulating search results.
But in your case, you both are giving each other brand exposure
You could ask for one way links, as those may be a bit more valuable.. but I wouldn't stress over it either way, you're on the right track IMO.
Does this help?
Hey josey, unfortunately we don't get any extra access to the api with a pro membership. You can read more about it here.
Does this help?
Hello qlkasdjfw,
I think it really depends on your niche. I don't particularly like Yahoo Answers because they are super well known, and are therefore more prone to spam. I try to find not-for-profit sites, local niche resource sites, government directories (like the chamber of commerce) and some relevant social platforms (but interaction is the primary goal with these of course).
Hey Tim,
It's not a bad idea, but i'd try to balance both options.
What I mean is, I wouldn't remove your URL completely from everything...
but If you do, please write a youmoz about it and let everyone know your results
But yeah, it would be helpful for users if Google monitored demand for brand terms, and applied some kinda of precedence to those that have a growing demand. Be careful not to spam this yourself (I had a client try it before hiring us), because it would obviously be easy to detect.
Hey tommo, you are correct- and I understand your concern.
For rank tracking....
Yes, it is 'technically' against Google's guidelines to scrape for rankings, however- Google is very aware of SEOmoz, and has never publicly stated anything against them. (They did ask SEOmoz to stop reporting pagerank a few years back though.)
Although this is anecdotal and doesn't prove an endorsement.... at a lot of conferences, and on some whiteboard Fridays, Matt Cutts has been in touch with the Moz team. This puts me at some ease about Google penalizing all Moz users. After-all, this is an entirely white hat community
As for everything else besides 'rank tracking'...
seomoz uses linkscape, their proprietary crawler and index of the web. This means, whether you are signed up or not, they may still crawl your site (and probably will), because that's how OSE gets data to return in open site explorer.
One final point to keep in mind...
SEOmoz uses several data centers around the US, so using their rank tracking would lead back to them, not you. Anyone could just as easily track your rankings as you could, so how would Google know to penalize you? They really couldn't because otherwise, all you'd have to do is setup a campaign for your competitors and watch their rankings fall.
If you're super concerned, you could use everything in the web app besides rank tracking, and you'd have absolutely nothing to worry about
(and the price would still be worth it- in my opinion).
Does this help?
[edit]
Please Note, I am completely white hat, and if I had once ounce of suspicion that search engines frowned on the rank tracker in the web app, I'd stop using the rank tracker. And that's a decision everyone needs to make for themselves. Above all else, I study the hell out of webmaster guidelines and try to follow every rule and piece of advice that I can.
Hey Dunamis, Yes!
We actually do this for our customers' sites and their competitors' sites. It's a great way to stay 'in tuned'
2) neboweb wrote a more detailed post about monitoring for web mentions with Yahoo Pipes
Does this help?
Hablo un poquito español, pero he utilizado Google traductor
Pero me gustaría seguir en contacto, por lo que puedo mejorar mi español.
Nope. Sorry. Google can crawl CSS, so anything you do to hide text (z-index, position:relative, etc) is easily detectable (Google can even parse javascript).
Now, sometimes you can get away with such things, like in a drop down menu for example. But if you do it, be sure to use the standards from a site that is well indexed.
You're right, I was looking at that to... hahaha. From my experience though, It's better to have one link.. maybe not much better, but at least a little bit.
Does this help Jonathan?
Great question. I recently worked on a site with exact same layout, and I chose the first one.
I think it's better for users because they won't have to 'think' about which one they should they click. It's also a bit easier to maintain, so you can focus resources elsewhere.
Hey Jonathan,
Chris is right. I strongly recommend:
use the alt tag (and don't hide text)
use text links along with the images
A great example is http://www.etsy.com/category/jewelry
(except they didn't name the images very well)
Does this help?
Hey Todd, thanks.
While I definitely agree about having tightly themed categories, I'm not quite sure I am sold on using a silo. Correct me if I'm wrong here please, but isn't a silo when you don't cross link detail pages (within the same category) with each other? I think Alan feels the same way, or perhaps I've misunderstood.
Check this post about the importance of link architecture by Google. Specifically, the last Q&A.
Hey totalvac, The markup goes throughout your page. Here's the getting starter guide for schema.org.
Does this help?
Hey EGOL, thanks. I've actually not thought about it for articles! Perhaps we could share an example with each other?
Hey Jennifer,
I agree with EGOL completely. I like to use Mindjet Manager for doing that kinda of work, although- 100,000 pages would be a bit rough. Just in case you think some may have been left out, this post by Richard Baxter about finding orphan pages can help you diagnose and find them.
Hey Justin, the rate at which you acquire new inbound links can matter.
This whiteboard wednesday video about link growth patterns, should be enough to get your team thinking about how to become a resource and naturally attract links in an ongoing fashion, as opposed to running a temporary link building campaign or two.
Even though it's a bit old, this 2009 link building webinar is great too.
PS. Don't forget tomorrow's link building webinar on SEOmoz
Hey Ryan, thanks. Thumbs up! I like your answer more
I should have looked further into this question. For some reason, I read the beginning and assumed we were talking about shopping cart style, check out pages.
And, you're right. Adding a nofollow to those links is a weak way of addressing Anthony's issue. Thanks for keeping me in check Ryan
I think this Q&A about contracts should help get you started. There's some links to really great blog posts about legal stuff in there. You may also consider asking a private Q&A, and requesting Sarah Bird's assistance if possible.
Does this help?
Hey Danielle, I think you should take a look through the Top SEOmoz members.
Just a couple that I've noted to be reputable (and experienced in those geographical areas) are Richard Baxter and Gianluca Fiorelli. And I'm sure there's tons more great people that would love to help
Best of Luck!
The Web App refreshes once per week. And unfortunately, you can't manually refresh them 
I actually suggested that as feedback a few months ago, and I think you should as well so maybe we can get that feature.?.?.?
It would really help when you've got a potential customer, and can run a report instantly for them in your analysis. Even if you could only do 1 or 2 instant crawls per month. That said, I've noticed them crawling pretty fast lately.
Hope this helps
delete me...
wrong answer...
Do not pass GO, do not collect any PageRank