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I've been a big believer in SEOmoz's TAGFEE tenents since stumbling on them a while back:

• **Long version: **http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-we-believe-why-seomozs-tagfee-tenets
• **TL;DR? Here's a shorter version: **http://www.seomoz.org/about/team (scroll down)

TAGFEE stands for "Transparent & Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, and Exceptional".  It's the core set of guiding principles that makes SEOmoz great... and a great place to work.

And even though I don't work for SEOmoz, I find TAGFEE inspiring and something that I want to implement in many aspects of my own life and work.  It has occurred to me more than once that TAGFEE is, in and of itself, just as much a tool for developing your work as Open Site Explorer, the browser toolbar, or the Linkscape Index.

So I'm curious: do folks outside SEOmoz use these principles at their workplaces?  Or do Mozzers use them outside of work in their community/communities of practice?

tagfee-transparent.jpg

Hey Brian, it depends on your needs, your business goals, the amount of time you have, along with your existing relationships with people and entities who might be good prospects for linking to you.

My favorite new resource from MozCon is Paddy Moogan's 35 ways to get links in 35 minutes. Check it out and see what you think. In the presentation he mentions a number of tools and tactics for getting links that matter.

What metrics tell you the most when you're looking at your competitors across the search landscape?

• PageRank/MozRank
• Inbound links
• Keyword rankings
• Alexa/QuantCast/etc.
• Pages indexed
• Something else entirely?

What numbers speak volumes to you when you want to get an idea of how you benchmark against your competitors?  And how do you communicate these results?

Looking over the discussion of underrated SEO tactics at http://sphinn.com/story/178993/ , I'm curious if folks here have any favorite SEO tactics that they feel are ignored, underrated, or somehow not appreciated by the community at large.  Any thoughts?

Among the tactics listed in the Sphinn post:

• Blog commenting
• Analytics to identify low-hanging keyword fruit
• Getting your site set up properly at the server level
• Unique and relevant imagery
• Internal links
• Google Place page optimization
• Several more...

Any others that should be included?  I'd personally add segmenting your keyword traffic into trademark (those that mention your brand name) versus non-trademark segments for more thorough analysis.

Just wanted to second everyone's good points made thus far and add in my own reminder: SEOs shouldn't design sites or write content for search engines at the expense of people (actual human customers).  When we do this, we might earn (temporary) high rankings, but will be responsible for driving a high bounce rate because people can't actually use the site or understand how it helps them succeed at their goals.

Ideally, SEO and UX design are like chocolate and peanut butter: two great things that go even better together.  

Google Webmaster Tools -- create an account there if you don't already have one -- is also a useful way to find 404 errors and track down their sources.  Once your account is setup, go to Diagnostics > Crawl Errors > HTTP (this is the deault tab for the "Crawl Errors" screen).

Ryan, also be on the lookout for duplicate content, which is a constant challenge for most e-commerce sites.  This can dilute your rankings and drive you down in the SERPs.  SEOmoz has a great primer on what duplicate content is and what to do about it.

Ross asks and answers this question on his blog.  He points to progress -- or perceived progress -- as being particularly important.  This made me think about my own motivations and what gets me excited to "do SEO" each day:

• I don't really "do SEO" all day long.  Part of my day is spent as an analyst, another part as a creative consultant and code reviewer, still another part as a business case developer, yet another part as a researcher and forecaster, and another part as a technical writer.  Wearing many different hats -- as most SEOs do -- helps to keep things moving.  Invariably I can find tasks within each of these disciplines that are fun or exciting.
• Results -- even when they're not what I want them to be.  I love that you can launch an SEO campaign or make some optimization and then start digging into the data almost immediately.  We're blessed in this industry with a sort of instant gratification for our efforts (as compared to, say, off-line publishing or -- god help us -- politics) that we probably take for granted.
• Emerging tools, tactics, and trends.  I can confidently say that search marketing evolves every day.  So there's always new ideas and strategies to explore.
• My colleagues -- they're the best and they rock.
• You: I learn from experts in the field all the time.

But enough about me.  What gets you going when it comes to SEO?

Also see Rand's recent update to the search engine ranking factors.  Keyword usage in <title>, <h1> and on-page content are all mentioned and measured.</p></title>

Unforutnately, your elements are hidden inside comment tags.  Here's what I'm seeing on the page when I perform a "View Source":

The comment tags are "".  They're usually used to hide content from rendering on the client-side.  Learn more about HTML comment tags here: http://htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/misc/comment.html

Not sure why you'd contain these valid elements within comment tags, but that's why SEOmoz can't see them. I'd suggest that this is also not best practice for Google and other search engines, even if they've managed to extract them.

So: remove the two comment tags from your elements and you'll be back in the clear.  Cheers!

Fundamentally, I agree with the others: this page/site needs help with UX more than it does with SEO.  The text is hard to read and doesn't seem to be written with human customers in mind.  The experience looks like it's optimized for search engines rather than humans.  This may help in driving traffic, but because the site looks untrustworthy, it probably results in a high bounce rate and low conversion.

I think that SEOs and UX design professionals can work together to solve problems like these by placing the human customer at the center of their strategy.

Best wishes and good luck!

Interesting.  When I look at the site in Open Site Explorer, it doesn't seem to return any kind of link metrics whatsoever, which is what you'd expect for a new site.  Maybe the new Linkscape index update has solved this issue?