Posted by Aaron Wheeler In this week's Whiteboard Friday Rand Fishkin clues you in on four link building tactics that you likely haven't heard about. Given the importance of link building to SEO, this video should prove to be worth its (virtual) weight in gold. (I mean that in the best possible way ;-p) if(!navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-shockwave-flash'])Wistia.VideoEmbed('wistia_174843',640,360,{videoUrl:'http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/03f8ba29261b82e8cb35f0e4ca815aac8fb05286.bin',stillUrl:'http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/84d0a346a0b96ddee80f29e3c55a927d31548e09.bin',distilleryUrl:'http://distillery-app.wistia.com/x',accountKey:'wistia-production_3161',mediaId:'wistia-production_174843',mediaDuration:397.13}) View statistics for this video Embed video <object width="640" height="360" id="wistia_174843" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/flash/embed_player_v1.1.swf"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="wmode" value="opaque"/><param name="flashvars" value="videoUrl=http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/03f8ba29261b82e8cb35f0e4ca815aac8fb05286.bin&stillUrl=http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/84d0a346a0b96ddee80f29e3c55a927d31548e09.bin&unbufferedSeek=false&controlsVisibleOnLoad=false&autoPlay=false&playButtonVisible=true&embedServiceURL=http://distillery-app.wistia.com/x&accountKey=wistia-production_3161&mediaID=wistia-production_174843&mediaDuration=397.13"/><embed src="http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/flash/embed_player_v1.1.swf" width="640" height="360" name="wistia_174843" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="opaque" flashvars="videoUrl=http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/03f8ba29261b82e8cb35f0e4ca815aac8fb05286.bin&stillUrl=http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/84d0a346a0b96ddee80f29e3c55a927d31548e09.bin&unbufferedSeek=false&controlsVisibleOnLoad=false&autoPlay=false&playButtonVisible=true&embedServiceURL=http://distillery-app.wistia.com/x&accountKey=wistia-production_3161&mediaID=wistia-production_174843&mediaDuration=397.13"></embed></object><script src="http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/embeds/v.js" charset="ISO-8859-1"></script><script>if(!navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-shockwave-flash'])Wistia.VideoEmbed('wistia_174843',640,360,{videoUrl:'http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/03f8ba29261b82e8cb35f0e4ca815aac8fb05286.bin',stillUrl:'http://seomoz-cdn.wistia.com/deliveries/84d0a346a0b96ddee80f29e3c55a927d31548e09.bin',distilleryUrl:'http://distillery-app.wistia.com/x',accountKey:'wistia-production_3161',mediaId:'wistia-production_174843',mediaDuration:397.13})</script> <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/">SEOmoz...

Photoshop and Illustrator compliment each other in many ways. Today we will demonstrate how you can use them in tandem to draw and color a graffiti-inspired illustration. Let’s get started! Before You Begin Before you begin, it’s always good to do a bit of planning. For graffiti art, do some research and keep it in mind when you begin planning out your sketch. Use thicker lines for the outline, thinner lines for the inner details, and wispy lines for more defined creases. Step 2 Sketch out a drawing and scan it at 300 DPI. When you’re finished, go ahead and make...

Posted by randfishIt's been a wild few weeks at the mozplex. Today wrapped up the amazing mozinar with our half-day tools training just in time to launch the new version of SEOmoz. Should we slow down this crazy pace? Nah. If you're feeling a sense of deja vu, don't worry; it's perfectly normal. We're the same old moz, but with a new look, faster loading pages and a surprising amount of new functionality. Let's walk through it together, shall we? Big Improvements to PRO Membership It's a good day to be PRO; we've just released:• A brand new PRO Dashboard,...

In today’s quick tip tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a realistic-looking credit card using Photoshop and Illustrator in just a few short steps. Let’s get started! Step 1 To speed up the process, we will begin by putting together some basic graphics in Illustrator. Make a 3.5in by 1.9in rounded rectangle, then fill the object with a color or gradient of your choice. Draw some curvy lines as shown using the Pen Tool. Then go to Object > Blend > Blend > Blend Options > Specific Steps, enter 30 and click OK. Make two different lines with different colors. Select the line...

Polls are nearly ubiquitous on the web today, and there are plenty of services that will provide a drop-in poll for you. But what if you want to write one yourself? This tutorial will take you through the steps to create a simple PHP-based poll, including database setup, vote processing, and displaying the poll. Step 1: Plan & Create the Database In order to store poll results, we’re going to store three pieces of information: A question identifier An answer identifier The number of votes a question/answer pair has gotten For this tutorial, we’ll be using PDO and SQLite. If you’re working with SQLite3, you...

Posted by Dana LookadooThis post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.I’m going to speed through the 2nd half of the 1st day at the SEOmoz Pro Training Race Track. Recall that 9 speakers raced through topics covering clicks to conversions.The following are highlights of the end of the race for Day 1.   Presentation Off Insights distilled also included the business side of pitching SEO. Will Critchlow...

There is a lot that you can do in Photoshop with just a few select tools. Today, we will demonstrate how to create a realistic iMac icon in Photoshop that includes a 27-inch screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. Let’s get started! Tutorial Assets Photo of iMac box (for reference) Black & Blue Icons Wallpaper (or any other you like) Step 1 Create new document 2048px x 1400px. This resolution is set according to the approximate dimensions of the reference image. If you want to create a smaller illustration, just adjust dimensions of workspace and reference image to your needs. Step 2 Before you begin, remember to keep...

Posted by Dana LookadooThis post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.Day 1 of SEOmoz Pro Training was like being at a race track. The course careened from clicks to conversions and from search results to landing pages. The audience watched 9 speakers drive their search marketing race cars at speeds faster than fingers can type. Given the finger-breaking speeds, it was fortunate all SEO fans were well...

In today’s quick tip screencast, we’re going to learn a MySQL query trick. You might be already familiar with the SUM() and IF() functions. We will be combining them to come up with some useful queries. This can reduce the number of queries you need to run for fetching certain types of summary data, and also provide a performance improvement.

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On this tutorial i am going to show how you can use filters to create wallpaper with abstraction in futuristic style. Final Image Preview Step 1 Create a new document with size of 1920 x 1200 pixels and 72 dpi with white background. Press D to set up foreground and background colors black and white. Go to Layer > New Layer and create a new layer called “wallpaper”. Step 2 Now we are going to work with filters on this new layer to create our wallpaper. To start, go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Step 3 After that apply Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic with following settings: Step...