The SEO Elevator Pitch - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by KameronJenkins

What is it you do again?

It's a question every SEO has had to answer at some point, whether to your family members over the holidays or to the developer who will eventually implement your suggestions. If you don't have a solid elevator pitch for describing your job, this is the Whiteboard Friday for you! Learn how to craft a concise, succinct description of life as an SEO without jargon, policing, or acting like a superhero.

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Video Transcription

Hey guys, welcome to this week's edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Kameron Jenkins, and I work here at Moz. Today we're going to be talking about creating an SEO elevator pitch, what is it, why we need one, and what kind of prompted this whole idea for an SEO elevator pitch.

So essentially, a couple of weeks ago, I was on Twitter and I saw John Mueller. He tweeted, "Hey, I meet with a lot of developers, and a lot of times they don't really know what SEOs do." He was genuinely asking. He was asking, "Hey, SEO community, how do you describe what you do?" I'm scrolling through, and I'm seeing a lot of different answers, and all of them I'm resonating with.

They're all things that I would probably say myself. But it's just interesting how many different answers there were to the question, "What do SEOs do and what value do they provide?" So I kind of thought to myself, "Why is that? Why do we have so many different explanations for what SEO is and what we do?" So I thought about it, and I thought that it might be a good idea for myself and maybe other SEOs if you don't already have an elevator pitch ready.

What is an SEO elevator pitch?

Now, if you're not familiar with the concept of an elevator pitch, it's basically — I have a definition here — a succinct and persuasive speech that communicates your unique value as an SEO. It's called an elevator pitch essentially because it should take about the length of time it takes to ride the elevator with someone. So you want to be able to quickly and concisely answer someone's question when they ask you, "Oh, SEO, what is that?I think I've heard of that before. What do you do?"

Why is this so hard?

So let's dive right in. So I mentioned, in the beginning, how there are so many different answers to this "what do you say you do here" type question. I think it's hard to kind of come up with a concise explanation for a few different reasons. So I wanted to dive into that a little bit first.

1. Lots of specialties within SEO

So number one, there are lots of specialties within SEO.

As the industry has advanced over the last two plus decades, it has become very diverse, and there are lots of different facets in SEO. I found myself on quite a rabbit trail. I was on LinkedIn and I was kind of browsing SEO job descriptions. I wanted to see basically: What is it that people are looking for in an SEO?

How do they describe it? What are the characteristics? So basically, I found a lot of different things, but I found a few themes that emerged. So there are your content-focused SEOs, and those are people that are your keyword research aficionados. There are the people that write search engine optimized content to drive traffic to your website. You have your link builders, people that focus almost exclusively on that.

You have your local SEOs, and you have your analysts. You have your tech SEOs, people that either work on a dev team or closely with a dev team. So I think that's okay though. There are lots of different facets within SEO, and I think that's awesome. That's, to me, a sign of maturity in our industry. So when there are a lot of different specialties within SEO, I think it's right and good for all of our elevator pitches to differ.

So if you have a specialty within SEO, it can be different. It should kind of cater toward the unique brand of SEO that you do, and that's okay.

2. Different audiences

Number two, there are different audiences. We're not always going to be talking to the same kind of person. So maybe you're talking to your boss or a client. To me, those are more revenue-focused conversations.

They want to know: What's the value of what you do? How does it affect my bottom line? How does it help me run my business and stay afloat and stay profitable? If you're talking to a developer, that's going to be a slightly different conversation. So I think it's okay if we kind of tweak our elevator pitch to make it a little bit more palatable for the people that we're talking to.

3. Algorithm maturity

Three, why this is hard is there's been, obviously, a lot of changes all the time in the algorithm, and as it matures, it's going to look like the SEO's job is completely different than last year just because the algorithm keeps maturing and it looks like our jobs are changing all the time. So I think that's a reality that we have to live with, but I still think it's important, even though things are changing all the time, to have a baseline kind of pitch that we give people when they ask us what it is we do.

So that's why it's hard. That's what your elevator pitch is.

My elevator pitch: SEO is marketing, with search engines

Then, by way of example, I thought I'd just give you my SEO elevator pitch. Maybe it will spark your creativity. Maybe it will give you some ideas. Maybe you already have one, and that's okay. But the point is not to use mine.

The point is essentially to kind of take you through what mine looks like, hopefully get your creative juices flowing, and you can create your own. So let's dive right into my pitch.

So my pitch is SEO is marketing, just with search engines. So we have the funnel here — awareness, consideration, and decision.

Awareness: Rank and attract clicks for informational queries.

First of all, I think it's important to note that SEO can help you rank and attract clicks for informational queries.

Consideration: Rank and attract clicks for evaluation queries.

So when your audience is searching for information, they want to solve their pain points, they're not ready to buy, they're just searching, we're meeting them there with content that brings them to the site, informs them, and now they're familiar with our brand. Those are great assisted conversions. Rank and attract clicks for evaluation queries. When your audience is starting to compare their options, you want to be there. You want to meet them there, and we can do that with SEO.

Decision: Rank, attract clicks, and promote conversion for bottom-funnel queries

At the decision phase, you can rank and attract clicks and kind of promote conversions for bottom of funnel queries. When people are in their "I want to buy" stage, SEO can meet them there. So I think it's important to realize that SEO isn't kind of like a cost center and not a profit center. It's not like a bottom of funnel thing. I've heard that in a lot of places, and I think it's just important to kind of draw attention to the fact that SEO is integrated throughout your marketing funnel. It's not relegated to one stage or another.

But how?

We talked about rank and attract clicks and promote conversions. But how do we do that? That's the what it does.

But how do we do it? So this is how I explain it. I think really, for me, there are two sides to the SEO's coin. We have driving, and we have supporting.

1. Driving

So on the driving side, I would say something like this. When someone searches a phrase or a keyword in Google, I make sure the business' website shows up in the non-ad results. That's important because a lot of people are like, "Oh, do you bid on keywords?"

We're like, "No, no, that's PPC." So I always just throw in "non-ad" because people understand that. So I do that through content that answers people's questions, links that help search engines find my content and show signs of authority and popularity of my content, and accessibility. So that's kind of your technical foundation.

You're making sure that your website is crawlable and it that it's index the way that you want it to be indexed. When people get there, it works. It works on mobile and on desktop. It's fast. So I think these are really the three big pillars of driving SEO — content, links, and making sure your website is technically sound. So that's how I describe the driving, the proactive side of SEO.

2. Supporting

Then two, we have supporting, and I think this is kind of an underrated or maybe it's often seen as kind of an interruption to our jobs.

But I think it's important to actually call it what it is. It's a big part of what we do. So I think we should embrace it as SEOs.

A. Be the Google Magic 8-ball

For one, we can serve as the Google Magic 8-Ball. When people come to us in our organization and they say, "Hey, I'm going to make this change, or I'm thinking about making this change.Is this going to be good or bad for SEO?"

I think it's great that people are asking that question. Always be available and always make yourself ready to answer those types of questions for people. So I think on the reactionary side we can be that kind of person that helps guide people and understand what is going to affect your organic search presence.

B. Assist marketing

Two, we can assist marketing. So on this side of the coin, we're driving.

We can drive our own marketing strategies. As SEOs, we can see how SEO can drive all phases of the funnel. But I think it's important to note that we're not the only people in our organization. Often SEOs maybe they don't even live in the marketing department. Maybe they do and they report to a marketing lead. There are other initiatives that your marketing lead could be investigating.

Maybe they say, "Hey, we've just done some market research, and here's this plan." It could be our job as SEOs to take that plan, take that strategy and translate it into something digital. I think that's a really important value that SEOs can add. We can actually assist marketing as well as drive our own efforts.

C. Fix mistakes

Then number three here, I know this is another one that kind of makes people cringe, but we are here to fix mistakes when they happen and train people so that they don't happen again. So maybe we come in on a Monday morning and we're ready to face the week, and we see that traffic has taken a nosedive or something. We go, "Oh, no," and we dive in.

We try to see what happened. But I think that's really important. It's our job or it's part of our job to kind of dive in, diagnose what happened, and not only that but support and be there to help fix it or guide the fixes, and then train and educate and make sure that people know what it is that happened and how it shouldn't happen again.

You're there to help train them and guide them. I think that's another really important way that we can support as SEOs. So that's essentially how I describe it.

3 tips for coming up with your own pitch

Before I go, I just wanted to mention some tips when you're coming up with your own SEO elevator pitch. I think it's really important to just kind of stay away from certain language when you're crafting your own "this is what I do" speech.

So the three tips I have are:

1. Stay away from jargon.

If you're giving an SEO elevator pitch, it's to people that don't know what SEO is. So try to avoid jargon. I know it's really easy as SEOs. I find myself doing it all the time. There are things that I don't think are jargon.

But then I take a couple steps back and I realize, oh yeah, that's not layman's terms. So stay away from jargon if at all possible. You're not going to benefit anyone by confusing them.

2. Avoid policing.

It can be easy as SEOs I've found and I've found myself in this trap a couple of times where we kind of act as these traffic cops that are waiting around the corner, and when people make a mistake, we're there to wag our finger at them.

So avoid any language that makes it sound like the SEOs are just the police waiting to kind of punish people for wrongdoing. We are there to help fix mistakes, but it's in a guiding and educating and supporting, kind of collaborative manner and not like a policing type of manner. Number three, I would say is kind of similar, but a little different.

3. Avoid Supermanning.

I call this Supermanning because it's the type of language that makes it sound like SEOs are here to swoop in and save the day when something goes wrong. We do. We're superheroes a lot of times. There are things that happen and thank goodness there was an SEO there to help diagnose and fix that.

But I would avoid any kind of pitch that makes it sound like your entire job is just to kind of save people. There are other people in your organization that are super smart and talented at what they do. They probably wouldn't like it if you made it sound like you were there to help them all the time. So I just think that's important to keep in mind. Don't make it seem like you're the police waiting to wag your finger at them or you're the superhero that needs to save everyone from their mistakes.

So yeah, that's my SEO elevator pitch. That's why I think it's important to have one. If you've kind of crafted your own SEO elevator pitch, I would love to hear it, and I'm sure it would be great for other SEOs to hear it as well. It's great to information share. So drop that in the comments if you feel comfortable doing that. If you don't have one, hopefully this helps. So yeah, that's it for this week's Whiteboard Friday, and come back again next week for another one.

Thanks, everybody.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Nuclear Industry Reduces Costs at Existing Facilities

U.S. Is Awash with Natural Gas and More Production Is on Its Way

Three Cheers for Holiday Lighting! Let It Glow, Let It Grow, Let It Glow

Environmentalists critical of electrified America must have mixed emotions this time of the year. It may be the season of good cheer and goodwill toward all, but it is also the time of the most conspicuous energy consumption. America the Beautiful is at her best when billions of strung lights turn darkness into magnificent glory, border to border, sea to shining sea.

Holiday lighting is a wonderous social offering—a positive externality in the jargon of economics—given by many to all.

While energy doomsayers such as Paul Ehrlich have railed against “garish commercial Christmas displays,” today’s ilk are shy to engage the issue. Yet holiday lighting is a glaring exception to their goal of reducing discretionary energy usage to help save the world from carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and other byproducts of modernity. If holiday energy guzzling is forgiven, why not excuse outdoor heating and cooling, one-switch centralized lighting, and instant-on appliances, not to mention hot tubs and SUVs?

Prancing around to turn on individual lights or waiting for an appliance to warm up wastes the scarcest, truly depleting resource: a person’s time. Surely extra energy use for comfort and convenience has priority over purely celebratory uses of energy.

So, what about the holiday humbug that celebratory electricity depletes energy minerals, fouls the air, and destabilizes the climate? Good tidings abound!

Resourceship: More from More

“Stronger oil and natural gas prices combined with continuing development of shales and low permeability formations,” the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently reported, “drove producers of crude oil and natural gas in the United States to report new all-time record levels of proved reserves for both fuels in 2017.” This result has made the US the world leader in the production of oil and of natural gas.

In terms of proved reserves (found and producible under existing technology and economic incentives), oil supply has doubled in the last decade and now stands above the record set nearly a half-century ago (1970). For natural gas, a one-third increase in found-and-ready supply was registered in the last year alone, resulting in an all-time U.S. record.

Globally, the news is positive despite statism wracking the petroleum industry in reserve-giant Venezuela. Between 1980 and 2017, despite growing production and consumption, world proved reserves of oil and of natural gas have grown by 148 percent and 170 percent, respectively, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

Coal is even more abundant than oil and natural gas abroad and at home. World proved reserves increased one-and-a-half-fold between 1980 and 2016. U.S. coal supplies compose 21 percent of the world total, second only to China. Far from dead, the U.S. coal industry is enjoying an export boom to Asia, which has record consumption with much more to come.

Domestic coal reserves are greater on a Btu basis than oil and natural gas combined. In terms of domestic usage, our coal represents 350 years of present consumption. Far from a dying resource, world coal production increased 3.2 percent last year.

Political events can drive down supply and increase prices, but the raw mineral resource base is prolific—and expanding in economic terms thanks to inexhaustible human ingenuity, as well as increasing exploratory capital provided by a growing economy.

Ever greater mineral energy wealth will come with any moves toward worldwide energy privatization, beginning with subsoil rights to minerals, as advocated by the late Guillermo Yeatts. The energy upside from freedom is tremendous.

Improved Air Quality

Growing energy consumption has been accompanied by improving air quality. All told, emissions of the six principal air pollutants have dropped by 73 percent at a time when the economy and fossil-fuel usage have grown substantially. Between 1970 and 2016, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports, gross domestic product increased 253 percent, vehicle miles traveled increased 190 percent, energy consumption increased 44 percent, and U.S. population grew by 58 percent. Yet since 1990, criteria pollutants have fallen:

• 75 percent for carbon monoxide (CO);
• 22 percent for ozone (O₃);
• 99 percent for lead (Pb);
• 56 percent for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂);
• 85 percent for sulfur dioxide (SO₂); and
• 39 percent for particulate matter (PM₁₀).

These results falsify the once fashionable I = PAT equation formulated by Paul Ehrlich and Obama science advisor John Holdren, which correlated (negative) environmental Impact with (increasing) Population, Affluence, and Technology. Just the opposite has proven the case, as Julian Simon recognized in his day.

Climate Alarmism Not

“With the holiday season,” stated one eco-activist, “the simplest thing that one can do is to not put up any Christmas or Hanukkah lights.” Should good citizens think twice about holiday lighting, given global warming and other suspected climate change from increasing man-made emissions and atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases? Hardly!

High-warming scenarios from climate models are increasingly being refuted by reality. “Climate computer model projections of future man-made warming due to human emissions of carbon dioxide are running too hot,” noted Ronald Bailey. “This is really good news.”

Indeed, there has been a “pause” in global warming since the late 1990s. The discrepancy between models and data is widening even as average temperatures continue to (slowly) rise. Meanwhile, incessant climate-change exaggerations have hurt the credibility of science itself.

It is time to dial back the alarm. “Based on everything that I’ve seen,” summarized Judith Curry, “it is very difficult to conclude that human-caused climate change is potentially a ‘ruin’ problem on the timescale of the 21st century.”

Climate economists can point to positive externalities, not only negative ones, from the human influence on global climate. A moderately warmer, wetter world, whether natural or anthropogenic, such as that experienced since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-19th century, has brought significant benefits. Even the New York Times has noted the “global greening” from CO₂ fertilization.

“Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the elixir of life,” concluded one study.

It is the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn are the materials out of which animals construct theirs. This knowledge is so well established, in fact, that we humans – and all the rest of the biosphere – are described in the most basic of terms as carbon-based lifeforms.

Affordable, plentiful energy provides the primary means for societies to improve the environment—and protect against weather and climate events. In the final analysis, wealth is environmental health, which explains why increasing energy usage and environmental improvement have gone hand-in-hand in the Western world.

Conclusion

A post at Yale Climate Connections laments that “the holidays have a huge carbon footprint.” Travel and gifts are the villains. “The holidays can be a time of abundance, with lots of food, gift-giving, and fun,” it is stated. “Unfortunately, they’re also a time of abundant carbon pollution.”

Don’t resort to carpooling, mass transit, self-made gifts, or recycling as recommended in this post. Choose convenience and, as they say, don’t sweat the small stuff. When it comes to energy, there is not a depletion, pollution, or climate problem in the United States or other areas of the world where private property, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law prevail. The consumer-driven, taxpayer-neutral energy market is sustainable and becoming even more so where human ingenuity is allowed to thrive. Celebration is called for, holiday lighting and all.

The post Three Cheers for Holiday Lighting! Let It Glow, Let It Grow, Let It Glow appeared first on IER.

More than Energy Savings: Why Your School Should Go Solar

Written by Stefan Johnson, SEI AmeriCorps VISTA

In Western Colorado, where Solar Energy International (SEI) is headquartered, we’ve been applying our industry-leading technical training to the education of the next generation. Most of the 65,000 individuals who have received our training have been adults,  but we’re increasing our impact with younger demographics by partnering with high schools.

SEI launched the High School Solar Career and Technical Pathway program in Delta County during a period of economic distress following the closure of two local coal-mines. Since the program’s launch in 2015, we’ve given hands-on education and training to over 90 students at two high schools. The high school offering is based off of PV101: Solar Training – Solar Electric Design and Installation (Grid-Direct), SEI’s most popular course for individuals looking to enter the solar energy field. Students who complete the course are eligible to receive the same industry-recognized Record of Completion as adults. Many of these high school students have gone on to study STEM in higher education or pursue jobs and internships in the solar and electric trades. At Paonia High School, students even had the opportunity to help install a 10 kW system at their school in the May of 2018.

Now, thanks to an innovative partnership with our local utility, Delta Montrose Electric Association (DMEA), we have big goals for expanding the program in 2019. DMEA is using their unclaimed capital credits to finance the installation of nearly 50 kWs of solar spread across five high schools to take place this coming spring. After learning about solar PV systems via SEI’s curriculum, students will once again be encouraged to apply their knowledge and participate in the installations of the systems.

Around the country, more and more schools are installing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on their campuses and rooftops. According to a recent report, there were 5,489 K-12 schools that had gone solar in the United States at the end of 2017, and that number has surely grown as we enter 2019. It wasn’t so long ago that one frequently heard complaints about the cost of environmentalism, but now, thanks to economies of scale and technology improvements, schools going solar are actually SAVING money. Beyond the pure financial and environmental benefits, however, there are many other advantages for schools to go solar. Solar PV systems can offer teachers and students an invaluable educational tool and hands-on resource for learning about math, physics, engineering, technology, and environmental sciences.

The Brighter Future; A Study on Solar in U.S. Schools report was jointly published by the Solar Energy Industries Association, The Solar Foundation, and Generation 180  in November, 2017 and found that the number of schools going solar was increasingly rapidly. According to the report, the total energy capacity for solar on K-12 schools nearly doubled from 490 Megawatts (MWs) in 2014 to 980 MWs in 2017.  That is now is enough to to power more than 190,000 homes! The total number of schools with solar increased from 3,752 in 2014 to nearly 5,500 in 2017.

Savings are one strong incentive for schools to add solar to their buildings and campuses. The falling cost of solar PV means that going solar is increasingly viable from a financial perspective, and schools can now even see big on their energy bills. In the sunny Southwest, two high schools in Rio Rancho, NM realized over $700,000 in savings since they installed solar in 2013. Solar is even penciling out in colder, cloudier states; a 2017 project in New York is expected to save Warwick School District $250,000 annually, while another school in Illinois is expected to save more than $10 million over the lifetime of their solar project. These energy savings translate to a big environmental impact. The Brighter Future report estimated solar schools are offsetting one million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, or the equivalent emissions of over 200,000 cars! Regardless of the region, solar has the potential bring significant economic and environmental benefits to schools and their students

Schools are also increasingly taking advantage of the unique educational opportunity offered by onsite PV systems. Integrating solar energy into educational curriculum can help students develop valuable skills whether they pursue higher education or look to immediately enter the workforce. In a world that is increasingly automated and globally competitive, the solar industry is one of the most robust and fastest growing in the nation. There are already over 250,000 solar jobs in the country, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects Solar photovoltaic installer as the fastest growing occupation from 2016 through 2026.

All across the United States, schools are getting creative with how they add solar energy onto their building and into their classrooms. In Bozeman, Montana, Claire Vases used her independent study project to advocate for solar and spearheaded a campaign that raised over $100,000 to fund solar at Sacajawea Middle School. At Antelope Valley Union School District in California, students’ performance in science and math improved dramatically after incorporating real-time energy data and solar energy concepts from the school’s PV system into their lesson plans.  

Interested in learning more about SEI’s High School Solar Career and Technical Pathway program? Contact Americorps VISTA and Project Coordinator Stefan Johnson at stefan@solarenergy.org OR (717)-712-3742.

The post More than Energy Savings: Why Your School Should Go Solar appeared first on Solar Training - Solar Installer Training - Solar PV Installation Training - Solar Energy Courses - Renewable Energy Education - NABCEP - Solar Energy International (SEI).

Flaws With a “Green New Deal,” Part 1 of 2

Congratulations from SEI: Solar Access Team wins first place for innovative community solar business model

Solar Energy International wants to acknowledge and congratulate the Access Solar team for taking first place in the business model pitch competition, and second place in the business plan presentation competition, that represented the culmination of their work in Colorado State University’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) MBA program. The team is made up of four incredibly talented and driven women: Addison Arnold, Luciana Figliolo, Melody Redburn, and Aurora Sepp-Peterson. SEI was fortunate to be chosen by the team in April to act as an advisor in their development of a business model that aims to connect community solar project developers to customers.

As part of the research and development phase, SEI gave the GSSE team a scholarship to take the online PV101 class, and SEI hosted the students when they visited the Paonia campus in July for a week of in-person collaboration. SEI AmeriCorps VISTA Shane Sobotka led the team during the week of research, brainstorming, and meetings. The team visited the CSU Agricultural Research Station in Hotchkiss to discuss a potential utility-scale solar project with the station’s directors, met with board members and executives of Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) and other local utilities at DMEA’s Annual Meeting, toured a local development using the latest in sustainable building technology (including a 40kW community solar carport array), discussed used and recycled solar module markets with an SEI engineering partner, and learned about the future of community energy markets and blockchain with Nest Labs/Google and Drift Marketplace. The team even joined Paonia’s local ultimate frisbee group for a pickup game during their visit.

The team’s final business model focused on identifying, qualifying, and bringing together individuals that want access to solar power but are locked out of the current market because they don’t own their roofs. Access Solar bundles these customers as counterparties to power purchase agreements with solar project developers in compatible energy markets. All four women plan to continue working in the solar industry, and Solar Energy International is grateful for such educated allies in our mission to create a world powered by renewable energy, and it seems that the CSU judges agree!

The post Congratulations from SEI: Solar Access Team wins first place for innovative community solar business model appeared first on Solar Training - Solar Installer Training - Solar PV Installation Training - Solar Energy Courses - Renewable Energy Education - NABCEP - Solar Energy International (SEI).

A letter of gratitude and warm wishes for the holiday season from SEI Executive Director Kathy Swartz

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Happy Solstice!

Winter has officially arrived in Colorado. While there are just a few patches of snow throughout our PV training campus in Paonia, the mountains are already deep in snow. There’s a cautious optimism that the snowpack will continue throughout the winter, which in spring and summer, provides water for drinking, irrigation for local farms, and outdoor adventures.

We often get asked the question, “So what do you do in the winter? Does SEI just shut down?” December is our busiest planning month of the year. As an organization, we just finalized our Strategic Plan and our 2019 budget, to be approved by our Board of Directors in January. Our Curriculum team is busy developing new training, including the next iteration of PV-specific OSHA training; new multimode and microgrid curriculum; and translating our PV202: Advanced PV System Design and the NEC into Spanish! Our Program Hispano and Middle East and Africa teams are busily mapping out the many trainings we’ll be offering in these regions. Our Student Services and Marketing teams are brainstorming new ways to improve the student experience.  Our Development team just wrapped up the annual end-of-year appeal. (Check your mailboxes!)

I’m so incredibly grateful for our board, staff, and instructors (we now number about 100!) who have made 2018 so successful. We’ve exceeded over 65,000 alumni who have taken training with us! We opened two international campuses (Oman and Costa Rica) to expand access to our training, launched the first PV-specific OSHA training (delivered for free to over 3000 of you), are helping to spread solar throughout rural Colorado through Solar Forward, launched a $2million capital campaign, and ensured that no person who wanted training was denied.

SEI’s success is a symptom of a much greater movement that’s happening across the world, and what is happening in Colorado demonstrates this.  Colorado has been the epicenter of a pivotal shift in the energy industry. From a groundbreaking announcement of the state’s largest utility moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050 followed by a municipal utility making a similar pledge, to a rural electric cooperative in the West asking state regulators to weigh in on a fair exit fee from their coal-heavy electricity supplier, the powerful moves made this week toward a future powered by renewable energy have the potential to reverberate impact across the country and the world.

SEI’s vision is complexly simple. We envision a world powered by renewable energy. As an organization we realize that it doesn’t matter to us why people come to us for training. Whether it’s a career change, to start a business, to combat global warming, to be self-reliant or to be on the cusp of a new technology. Renewable energy is neither Republican or Democrat or Tea Party or Green Party, though it may be played as such. For us, the ultimate end goal is a world powered by renewable energy.

And to reach this vision, SEI’s mission is to provide industry-leading technical training in renewable energy to empower people, communities and businesses worldwide. To reach our vision, we have to have systems that are properly sold, designed, installed, and maintained to avoid repeating the lessons of previous decades. In this rapidly evolving industry, it’s our mission to provide people with the training that they need, no matter what size or type of system they specialize in. This training, as our alumni know first-hand, is empowering. Whether you become a more knowledgeable homeowner or start a new career, develop or grow a business, or work with a community in the developing world- SEI’s training is designed to serve you.

As this year quickly comes to a close, on behalf of all of us at Solar Energy International, we wish you a Happy 2019. May your year be sunny, your systems trouble-free, and your work fulfilling. Thank you for being an alumni and friend of SEI.

 

Sincerely,

Kathryn Swartz

Executive Director

The post A letter of gratitude and warm wishes for the holiday season from SEI Executive Director Kathy Swartz appeared first on Solar Training - Solar Installer Training - Solar PV Installation Training - Solar Energy Courses - Renewable Energy Education - NABCEP - Solar Energy International (SEI).

Colorado: The epicenter of a pivotal renewable energy shift

Colorado has been the epicenter of a pivotal shift in the energy industry this past week. From a groundbreaking announcement of the state’s largest utility moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050 followed by a municipal utility making a similar pledge, to a rural electric cooperative in the West asking state regulators to weigh in on a fair exit fee from their coal-heavy electricity supplier, the powerful moves made this week toward a future powered by renewable energy have the potential to reverberate impact across the country.

Last week, Delta Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) “to exercise its statutory authority over Tri-State Generation & Transmission as a public utility and adjudicate a just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory exit charge.” Tri-State, which primarily supplies electricity from fossil fuels, limits all of its members to 5% renewable energy, while at the same time their electricity costs have increased by 56% since 2005.

If the PUC rules in DMEA’s favor, it could potentially cause an exodus of other electric co-ops to follow in DMEA’s footsteps, or force Tri-State to significantly raise the cap on renewables. Either way, this is a win for renewables.

We can look across the country to Georgia for an example of why this decision could be so impactful. Just last week, a partnership opportunity model emerged between consumer-owned coops and corporate renewable energy procurers when Georgia’s Walton Electric Membership Corporation revealed contract details for three solar projects that will supply a Facebook data center in the state. The projects will add up to 202.5 megawatts in total capacity.

In this case, Facebook chose a coop over a larger investor-owned utility (IOU).  A Facebook spokesman told Greentech Media the move was in part due to a commitment “to the communities that host us, and part of that is working to bring additional investment to these communities, including new renewable energy resources.”

The news in Colorado and Georgia jointly reveals that renewable energy is emerging as primarily an issue of economic development as opposed to simply combating climate change. As an industry-leading training organization, SEI recognizes the potential of job opportunities created by projects such as these, and we are so excited for the increased support and access to renewable energy.

There’s a movement happening and it’s swelling from the ground level. DMEA is making this move because we, their members, voted in favor of them moving forward with a new vision, and their Board, which is composed of everyday citizens from Delta and Montrose Counties, is bold enough to see this fight through until the end.

We are excited for this win-win scenario for renewable energy, and are looking forward to powering forward into the future as a leading training provider in solar energy, empowering the growing workforce as the industry continues to thrive.

The post Colorado: The epicenter of a pivotal renewable energy shift appeared first on Solar Training - Solar Installer Training - Solar PV Installation Training - Solar Energy Courses - Renewable Energy Education - NABCEP - Solar Energy International (SEI).

Offshore Energy Exploration: Myth vs. Fact

Myth: There’s not enough energy in the outer continental shelf (OCS) to make exploration worthwhile.

Fact: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates that the OCS contains 90.55 billion barrels of oil and 327.58 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These estimates are likely very conservative, as bans on offshore leasing have made it illegal to explore and determine how much more energy is available. In other words, this is just the tip of the iceberg­—history has proven that when people are allowed to look for energy, they generally find it. The best way to stop them from finding it is to stop them from looking for it.

Myth: Offshore energy development would do nothing to lower prices because it would take too long for the energy resources to make it into the market.

Fact: Economists have long disputed the notion that offshore energy development would not affect consumer prices. Both economic theory and now empirical evidence demonstrate that government policies promising future oil production lead to immediate price relief. (Economist Robert Murphy made this point in an IER blog.)

Further, while there are areas along the Atlantic coast without the significant build-out of infrastructure needed to facilitate quick energy production, other currently unexplored areas do have that infrastructure in place, such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico. No serious observer has ever suggested that it would take anywhere close to ten years to access those energy resources and deliver them to American consumers. Furthermore, in places like California, where an infrastructure is already in place and the local community supports offshore exploration, those resources could be available in a significantly shorter period of time.

Lastly, for those areas lacking existing infrastructure, industry has responded with Floating Production and Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessel systems, which allow the production of oil to store on a ship that then offloads the oil to tankers. Brazil’s increasingly rich offshore areas have been using this approach, and they are becoming more common as discoveries can be monetized pending construction of longer-term infrastructure. Frontier areas in the Gulf of Mexico have several and more are being planned.

Myth: Offshore energy production is dangerous and harmful to the environment.

Fact: Offshore energy production is safe and environmentally sound. In the last 50 years, the oil and gas industry has developed innovative technologies and exploration methods that are efficient, pose little threat to the environment, and keep workers safe. The industry has taken additional precautions to prepare for any type of unwanted incident.

Some of those technologies include:

• Advanced 3-D seismic and 4-D time imaging technologies: enable offshore operators to locate oil and gas resources far more accurately to necessitate less drilling and allow greater resource recovery.
• Storm chokes: placed on all offshore wells to detect damage to surface valves and shut down production during an emergency.
• Blowout preventers: continuously monitor the subsurface and subsea-bed conditions to prepare for unexpected changes in well pressure.
• Waste product reuse technology: transforms drill cuttings, a waste product of rock pieces and drilling fluids produced when drilling a well, into raw material for bricks and roads, and they were used in rebuilding Louisiana’s wetlands.

These technologies and practices are yielding results:

• According to the U.S. Department of Interior data, offshore operators produced 14 billion barrels of oil from 1986 to 2015 with a spill rate of only .035 percent. (The data includes the spill caused by the Deep Water Horizon accident.)
• Hurricanes Cindy, Ike, Ivan, Katrina, Lili, and Rita all occurred during the 2000 decade. (Ivan occurred in 2004, Rita and Katrina occurred in 2005, and Ike occurred in 2008.) While these hurricanes destroyed platforms and damaged pipeline segments, there were no major oil spills attributed to these storms.

Myth: Offshore oil and gas production is the number one contributor to oil in our oceans.

Fact: About 1 percent of all oil found in the North American marine environment comes from offshore oil and gas development. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the majority—over 60 percent—is the result of natural seeps through the ocean floor. In many places it is higher. For example, all of the tar on the beaches of Santa Barbara is from natural seeps. Moreover, these seeps are reduced when the oil is produced and transported to shore, where it can be put to use as energy for America.

Oil seeps—underwater cracks in the Earth’s crust—release more than 60 percent of the petroleum entering North American waters and over 45 percent of the petroleum in waters around the globe. Natural seepage of crude oil from geologic formations below the seafloor is estimated to exceed 47,000,000 gallons in North American waters and 180,000,000 gallons globally every year.

Myth: Oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of untapped leases and don’t need access to new areas.

Fact: Lease agreements already contain federal requirements that require oil companies to use leased land in a timely manner. The 1992 Comprehensive Energy Policy Act requires energy companies to comply with lease provisions and explore expeditiously or risk forfeiture of the lease. Energy companies cannot “stockpile” leases (even those found to contain no oil or gas) to drive prices up.

Companies are not “sitting” on the leases they now have. Technology has allowed companies to increase their production on leased acreage.

The Hard Facts:

• 98 percent of Federal offshore areas are not leased to oil and gas drilling.
• 97 percent of Federal onshore areas are not leased to oil and gas drilling.

The post Offshore Energy Exploration: Myth vs. Fact appeared first on IER.

IER Sues Treasury For Records On Russian Meddling in U.S. Energy Policy

WASHINGTON — Today, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) filed an open records lawsuit against the Department of the Treasury concerning evidence of Russian attempts to influence U.S. energy policy. This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks certain, specific records of Treasury officials as they relate to two congressional oversight reports detailing the apparent Russian campaign to oppose fracking and otherwise promote a “climate agenda” in the U.S. The FOIA request also seeks records related to oversight attempts by one congressional committee that apparently has fallen on deaf ears at Treasury.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee released two reports revealing Russian efforts to influence U.S. policy, including energy policy by promoting environmentalist themes. The Washington Examiner recently reported on the effort of House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith to obtain responses from Treasury on these matters, to which Treasury has had no response. In order to obtain more information and educate the public on this matter, IER requested correspondence relating to Russia, hydraulic fracturing and environmental advocacy that were to or from named, high-ranking career Treasury employees.

Treasury, which owed IER responsive records, among other responses, by November 23, 2018, has only said that someone will get back to IER, at some point in the future, because of “unusual circumstances”.

IER President Thomas Pyle said:

“The Russia meddling that no one is talking about involves Russian attempts to promote an environmental agenda in the U.S. by masking its interests and using U.S. green groups to do its bidding. It is imperative that we learn the extent of their ideological campaign and what the federal government may know. Treasury has a public obligation to inform the public on this matter and we file this lawsuit in the hopes that the information will come out as soon as possible.”

Attorney Chris Horner, who filed the suit for IER on behalf of the non-profit public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) said,

“Increasing public revelations confirm that these issues are too important to be buried in bureaucratic runaround and delays. Both GAO and IER look forward to resolving the Treasury Department’s public obligations sooner rather than later, but intend to fully pursue IER’s rights, and these public records, to fully understand what our government officials knew and did regarding this ideological campaign.”

Today’s suit follows litigation filed by the GAO against the Treasury Department on IER’s behalf this summer pertaining to career government officials attempts to quietly advance the “climate industry”. IER has also filed complaints against the State Department regarding records on a related issue of Russian funding of green groups and a separate suit relating to green-group lobbyist Jennifer Morgan’s advancement of initiatives backed by China.

To read IER’s FOIA request to Treasury, click here.

To read IER’s public lawsuit filled today, click here.

###

For media inquiries, please contact Erin Amsberry
eamsberry@ierdc.org

The post IER Sues Treasury For Records On Russian Meddling in U.S. Energy Policy appeared first on IER.

IER Welcomes Five Energy Experts to Join Newly Created Advisory Council

WASHINGTON — Today, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) launches an Advisory Council and welcomes five inaugural members to its organizational network. The Advisory Council consists of economists, academics, policy experts, and industry leaders dedicated to advancing thoughtful solutions to problems in the energy space rooted in free market principles. The advisors will play a key role in guiding IER’s path as well as shaping research and program activities. 

The inaugural Advisory Council members include:

Alex Alexiev, policy expert and author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles on geopolitics, energy issues and international relations. Alex is widely regarded as an expert in many fields and has held prominent governmental advisory roles both in America and abroad. 

David Kreutzer, economist and policy analyst who has written extensively on economics and energy issues with work appearing in publications such as National Tax Journal, Journal of Energy and Development, and more. David has taught at a number of universities and previously served as a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.   

Lisa Linowes, Executive Director for The Wind Action Group and senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Lisa has dedicated more than a decade to championing sound policies relating to wind energy in America.

Robert Michaels, lecturer on economics at California State University, Fullerton, where he has served as Professor of Economics for 25 years. Robert is a widely sought after expert on energy and has advised governmental bodies across the country and globe on energy policies.  

Hilary Sills, president of Sills Associates with over 40 years of experience in government relations, legislative and regulatory advocacy, international affairs and corporate communications. Hilary has a deep understanding of both the Executive and Legislative Branches of government and expertise in energy and regulatory issues. 

IER President Thomas Pyle stated:

“We are thrilled to welcome these accomplished and trusted advisors into the IER fold. At IER we pride ourselves on our ability to convene the best and brightest minds with respect to free market energy policies. The members of the Advisory Council will provide IER with expert guidance and insight that will help us shape our free market positions. We are grateful for their willingness to share their expertise and look forward to working with them.”

Read their full bios here.

###

For media inquiries, please contact Erin Amsberry
eamsberry@ierdc.org

The post IER Welcomes Five Energy Experts to Join Newly Created Advisory Council appeared first on IER.

RFF Critique Misreads Carbon Tax Study

IER Sues State for Records on Russian Funding of Environmental Pressure Groups

WASHINGTON — Today, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) filed an open records lawsuit against the State Department concerning apparent efforts by Russia to fund environmental pressure groups in the U.S. IER filed this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

In order to obtain more information and educate the public on this matter, IER requested correspondence relating to Russia, hydraulic fracturing and environmental advocacy that were to or from named, high-ranking career State employees. The suit also seeks correspondence discussing House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith’s inquiry into the matter, as covered recently in the Washington Examiner. 

The State Department, which owed IER responsive records, among other responses, by November 23, 2018, has only acknowledged receipt of the request, failing to provide any of the legally required responses. When pressed, State declined to provide any such response citing a “backlog”.

Today’s suit follows ongoing litigation by IER against the State Department for records pertaining to China’s efforts to engage green pressure groups to organize the post-Obama Washington, D.C. “climate world” as evidenced in emails obtained under previous FOIA requests. Emails cited by IER in its recent FOIA requests confirm a willingness among some federal employees working on climate issues to promote China’s preferred policies, which plainly are not in the U.S. interest.

IER looks forward to resolving the State Department’s public obligations sooner rather than later, but will fully pursue its rights in obtaining these documents of immediate public interest. 

IER President Thomas Pyle said:

“Any foreign attempts to covertly influence U.S. energy policy must be exposed and met with full consequences. Particularly given what we have already learned, the State Department’s evident lack of interest in examining this issue of obvious concern to congressional oversight, or in bothering with a substantive response to our request even when pressed, is deeply concerning. We hope State corrects this matter immediately by providing the necessary records to document what has been happening behind the backs of the American people. The State Department must be clear: foreign meddling in U.S. energy policy or markets will not be tolerated under any circumstances.” 

Attorney Chris Horner, who filed the suit for IER on behalf of the non-profit public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) said,

“These issues are too important to face bureaucratic runaround and delays. As IER noted, this request is made to inform the public about an issue of great public interest. State failed to offer even the slightest indication it was in fact processing the request. As such, the State Department suggested this matter has been tossed on the pile of requests that are not likely to be satisfied without filing suit.”

To read IER’s FOIA Request to the State Department, click here. 

To read IER’s public lawsuit filled today, click here.
###

For media inquiries, please contact Erin Amsberry
eamsberry@ierdc.org

The post IER Sues State for Records on Russian Funding of Environmental Pressure Groups appeared first on IER.

American LNG and the Future of Energy in Eastern Europe

On Oct. 17, 2018, Poland’s largest energy company PGNiG signed a contract with two American LNG companies to deliver up to 1 million tons of gas each over the next 20 years. It is the first large U.S. LNG contract in Eastern Europe, and it won’t be the last. Indeed, it is very likely that American LNG companies will become major suppliers to Eastern Europe in the near future.

There are a number of reasons for this, both politically and economically. It is, of course, well-known that oil and gas exports, and particularly the latter, have long been used by Russian rulers as political weapons to achieve specific policy objectives—more often than not directed against Western interests. So none of this is either new or especially surprising. What is new is the active collusion by an EU member in helping Russia in achieving these objectives. And it is not just any EU member, but the largest and most influential of them—Germany.

It started with a Gazprom pipeline designed to bypass Eastern Europe and deliver gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream. At the time it was being built, the Polish foreign minister did not hesitate to call it the “Molotov-Ribbentrop pipeline” condemning its collusive nature in the starkest terms possible. Now Russia and Germany are in the process of building Nord Stream -2, which entails doubling the capacity of the original pipeline to 100 million metric tons per year despite the vigorous protests of Ukraine and the Eastern European EU member states.

This, it should be noted, is a capacity nearly twice as large as German needs and allows it to become a key reseller of Russian gas and earn huge profits at the expense of gas transit fees previously earned by Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Despite the rather obvious political motivation of the Kremlin in pushing the pipeline, the entire German political establishment, starting with Chancellor Merkel, defends the project rather hypocritically as simply “commercial.” Here is how the noted energy expert and former Bulgarian ambassador to Russia, Ilian Vassilev, describes the prevalent views in Eastern Europe regarding the project: “Nord Stream -2 will allow Gazprom to distort competition, pick winners and losers and transfer lavish Russian state subsidies into the heart of Europe.” Further, NS-2 would allow “Germany to act as Russia’s proxy beyond German borders by using subsidies forbidden under EU legislation” thus “acting as a shield for Gazprom against EU laws.”

The way German and Kremlin acolytes of NS-2 defend that project is by denying its political motivation and claiming that it enjoys the advantage of lower Gazprom prices currently, after a 30% politically motivated cut in 2009 and another 10% in 2014. This, however, is deeply misleading, as many U.S. experts have documented. Prominent LNG expert, Mark Mills, for instance, makes a persuasive case for U.S. LNG exports by noticing the following trends: Following the shale gas revolution, the United States has now emerged as the world champion in gas production with 27 trillion cubic feet daily in 2017 versus 22 trillion for Russia. With supply growing faster than demand, America is on its way to become the largest LNG supplier in the world. Already, U.S. export gas prices are half of what they were five years ago and they are no longer linked to oil prices but to spot markets and shorter-term contracts. In another major innovation, the U.S. has now built (at Elba Island, Georgia) the first micro terminal supplying LNG in containers, something that has large-scale implications for distributed energy in Eastern Europe.

The Eastern Europeans have taken due notice of these developments and are busy preparing for an LNG future. Poland, Lithuania, and Greece already have LNG terminals and Croatia is also building one. Ten East European countries have now united in what’s called the Three Seas Initiative (Baltic, Black Sea and Adriatic) that is predicated on energy independence from Russia and close cooperation with the United States.

What’s needed now to promote this highly positive trend is for the Trump administration to stop Nord Stream -2, by imposing sanctions voted on by Congress. Several Western European participants have already declared that they will quit the project if subject to American sanctions. It is high time for Washington to act in its own best interests as a potential LNG supplier and help the Eastern Europeans, who are by far America’s best friends in Europe.

 

Alex Alexiev is chairman of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies and is a member of the Institute for Energy Research Advisory Council.

The post American LNG and the Future of Energy in Eastern Europe appeared first on IER.

Are We Finally Free of Fowl Folly and Frog Foolery?

On December 6, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) unveiled a plan that will likely be one of the most consequential for landowners and energy developers by the Trump administration thus far. That plan? Reforming the resource management plan for the greater sage grouse.

The Absurd Bird Hurdle Is Cured

The greater sage grouse, a chicken-sized bird with a bizarrely captivating courtship display, lives in the sagebrush steppe that stretches over 11 Western states. In 2005, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) concluded that listing the sage grouse on the endangered or threatened species list was not warranted. In 2010, the agency worried that habitat destruction could potentially threaten the sage grouse and thus set a deadline of 2015 to decide whether to list the species. With the threat of crushing regulation should the sage grouse be listed (endangering landowners and costing the economy more than $5.6 billion per year), the Obama administration brokered conservation plans with states. It also designated 10.7 million acres of federal land as “Sagebrush Focal Areas”—habitat with restrictions that supersede the plans to which states had just approved.

With significant protections finalized, BLM in 2015 concluded that the sage grouse remained “relatively abundant and well-distributed across the species’ 173-million acre range” and thus did not warrant listing. But just a year later, it issued new guidelines adding another layer of restrictions and burying land users in paperwork. The plans were challenged in court by the state of Idaho and a joint suit by the state of Nevada, nine Nevada counties, three mining companies, and a privately owned ranch. The latter suit successfully argued that BLM disregarded the input of Nevada experts and stakeholders in violation of federal law and designated an additional 2.8 million acres of Sagebrush Focal Areas after releasing a draft Environmental Impact Statement without them.

But fortunes may be improving for Western ranchers, energy developers, and the countless communities that depend on them. BLM’s revised plan would limit the area designated Sagebrush Focal Areas to 1.8 million acres, freeing up 9 million acres to potential development. The plan would also give states greater flexibility in granting land-use waivers and crafting their own mitigation strategies, pleasing governors on both sides of the aisle. It will be welcome news to Jack Farris, a third-generation rancher from Colorado whose business was put in jeopardy last year when he was told that the federal sage grouse plan required him to restrict his cattle grazing by 50 percent. Jack staying in business is also great news for the sage grouse because driving out ranchers would have resulted in ranchland subdivisions, increasing fire danger, noxious weeds, predators, non-native vegetation, and other factors harmful to the bird.

The changes were met with the usual outcry by environmental groups that occur whenever any federal wildlife protections are revised (regardless of whether they actually involve endangered species). But the 63 percent increase in the sage grouse population between 2013 and 2015, even before BLM’s agreements with states were finalized, shows that federal regulation is not the only way for a species to recover. In fact, only 2 percent of listed endangered or threatened species have been delisted due to recovery—suggesting that perhaps the federal government is no more competent at protecting wildlife than it is at its other pursuits. Considering the perverse incentives that are caused by punishing owners of critical habitat with uncompensated takings­­—shoot, shovel, and shut up— allowing local communities that actually live with the sage grouse to take command of conservation efforts is undoubtedly the best outcome for the bird.

Bogged in Frog Slog, Loggers Hope to Break Logjam

The sage grouse reforms are not the only good news about the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to come in time for its 45^th anniversary. FWS has proposed revisions to the ESA that would remove its automatic conveyance of endangered species protection for threatened species and clarify standards for species listing, delisting, reclassifying, and critical habitat designation.

Still, these revisions are liable to be once again revised or expansively interpreted upon a future change of leadership. That is why the ESA’s most important development comes from the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Weyerhaeuser v. Fish and Wildlife Service. In this case, owners of a 1,544-acre timber plantation in Louisiana were prevented from developing their property because the land had been designated a “critical habitat” for the dusky gopher frog. Yet nobody has seen any of the frogs in the land’s vicinity for more than 50 years, and by FWS’s own admission the land is unsuitable for the frog without significant changes.

In a unanimous (8-0) decision, the case was remanded to a lower court to decide the meaning of the word “habitat.” Though the ruling was narrow and the loggers may still lose, the case has significant implications. In requiring that a “critical habitat” actually be a “habitat” for the species, the Court seems to favor a more common sense, dictionary definition of a habitat; that is, a place where a species actually resides or at least is likely to move to. More importantly, the Court strongly affirmed the right of landowners to challenge FWS’s economic analysis in deciding which areas to exclude from habitat designations.

The case signals an evolving thinking on the Court that could have consequences even beyond the ESA. Chief Justice Roberts’ note that courts should be skeptical of agency claims of unreviewable discretion suggests that soon the Court will finally rid itself of Chevron deference. Meanwhile, the Court’s decision to add Kisor v. Wilkie to its docket may spell the end of Auer deference (whereas Chevron deference directs courts to accept agencies’ interpretations of legislation, Auer deference applies to agencies’ interpretations of their own regulation). Such doctrinal changes are sorely needed. For instance, while the Trump administration’s proposed Clean Water Act revisions may come and go as fast as the Obama administration’s, the Supreme Court could have a lasting say by clarifying that EPA cannot interpret every puddle to be “navigable” waters.

Conclusion

We all benefit from a thriving ecosystem, but shutting down millions of acres for an abundant and expanding bird population is plainly unreasonable. Bureaucrats in Washington do not know what is best for the sage grouse or Western communities, so we should cheer BLM’s revisions that decentralize conservation decisions. For more long-standing change, however, we need courts that will check agency expansion. Getting rid of Chevron and Auer deference is critical to reining in bureaucratic power grabs that threaten economic activity and private property rights.

The post Are We Finally Free of Fowl Folly and Frog Foolery? appeared first on IER.

#13: IER staff on the yellow vest protests in France

IER’s policy team discusses the causes of the Yellow Vest protests across France and the possible impacts the popular uprising could have on the global climate change movement.

Read more on the protests here: www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/interna…saster/

The post #13: IER staff on the yellow vest protests in France appeared first on IER.

3 Big Lessons from Interviewing John Mueller at SearchLove London - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by willcritchlow

When you've got one of Google's most helpful and empathetic voices willing to answer your most pressing SEO questions, what do you ask? Will Critchlow recently had the honor of interviewing Google's John Mueller at SearchLove London, and in this week's edition of Whiteboard Friday he shares his best lessons from that session, covering the concept of Domain Authority, the great subdomain versus subfolder debate, and a view into the technical workings of noindex/nofollow.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Whiteboard Friday fans. I'm Will Critchlow from Distilled, and I found myself in Seattle, wanted to record another Whiteboard Friday video and talk through some things that I learned recently when I got to sit down with John Mueller from Google at our SearchLove London conference recently.

So I got to interview John on stage, and, as many of you may know, John is a webmaster relations guy at Google and really a point of contact for many of us in the industry when there are technical questions or questions about how Google is treating different things. If you followed some of the stuff that I've written and talked about in the past, you'll know that I've always been a little bit suspicious of some of the official lines that come out of Google and felt like either we don't get the full story or we haven't been able to drill in deep enough and really figure out what's going on.

I was under no illusions that I might be able to completely fix this this in one go, but I did want to grill John on a couple of specific things where I felt like we hadn't maybe asked things clearly enough or got the full story. Today I wanted to run through a few things that I learned when John and I sat down together. A little side note, I found it really fascinating doing this kind of interview. I sat on stage in a kind of journalistic setting. I had never done this before. Maybe I'll do a follow-up Whiteboard Friday one day on things I learned and how to run interviews.

1. Does Google have a "Domain Authority" concept?

But the first thing that I wanted to quiz John about was this domain authority idea. So here we are on Moz. Moz has a proprietary metric called domain authority, DA. I feel like when, as an industry, we've asked Google, and John in particular, about this kind of thing in the past, does Google have a concept of domain authority, it's got bundled up with feeling like, oh, he's had an easy way out of being able to answer and say, "No, no, that's a proprietary Moz metric. We don't have that."

I felt like that had got a bit confusing, because our suspicion is that there is some kind of an authority or a trust metric that Google has and holds at a domain level. We think that's true, but we felt like they had always been able to wriggle out of answering the question. So I said to John, "Okay, I am not asking you do you use Moz's domain authority metric in your ranking factors. Like we know that isn't the case. But do you have something a little bit like it?"

Yes, Google has metrics that map into similar things

John said yes. He said yes, they have metrics that, his exact quote was, "map into similar things."My way of phrasing this was this is stuff that is at the domain level. It's based on things like link authority, and it is something that is used to understand performance or to rank content across an entire domain. John said yes, they have something similar to that.

New content inherits those metrics

They use it in particular when they discover new content on an existing domain. New content, in some sense, can inherit some of the authority from the domain, and this is part of the reason why we figured they must have something like this, because we've seen identical content perform differently on different sites. We know that there's something to this. So yes, John confirmed that until they have some of those metrics developed, when they've seen a bit of content for long enough, and it can have its own link metrics and usage metrics, in the intervening time up until that point it can inherit some of this stuff from the domain.

Not wholly link-based

He did also just confirm that it's not just link-based. This is not just a domain-level PageRank type thing.

2. Subdomains versus subfolders

This led me into the second thing that I really wanted to get out of him, which was — and when I raised this, I got kind of an eye roll, "Are we really going down this rabbit hole" — the subdomain versus subfolder question. You might have seen me talk about this. You might have seen people like Rand talk about this, where we've seen cases and we have case studies of moving blog.example.com to example.com/blog and changing nothing else and getting an uplift.

We know something must be going on, and yet the official line out of Google has for a very long time been: "We don't treat these things differently. There is nothing special about subfolders. We're perfectly happy with subdomains. Do whatever is right for your business." We've had this kind of back-and-forth a few times. The way I put it to John was I said, "We have seen these case studies. How would you explain this?"

They try to figure out what belongs to the site

To his credit, John said, "Yes, we've seen them as well." So he said, yes, Google has also seen these things. He acknowledged this is true. He acknowledged that it happens. The way he explained it connects back into this Domain Authority thing in my mind, which is to say that the way they think about it is: Are these pages on this subdomain part of the same website as things on the main domain?

That's kind of the main question. They try and figure out, as he put it, "what belongs to this site." We all know of sites where subdomains are entirely different sites. If you think about a blogspot.com or a WordPress.com domain, subdomains might be owned and managed by entirely different people, and there would be no reason for that authority to pass across. But what Google is trying to do and is trying to say, "Is this subdomain part of this main site?"

Sometimes this includes subdomains and sometimes not

He said sometimes they determine that it is, and sometimes they determine that it is not. If it is part of the site, in their estimation, then they will treat it as equivalent to a subfolder. This, for me, pretty much closes this loop. I think we understand each other now, which is Google is saying, in these certain circumstances, they will be treated identically, but there are circumstances where it can be treated differently.

My recommendation stays what it's always been, which is 100% if you're starting from the outset, put it on a subfolder. There's no upside to the subdomain. Why would you risk the fact that Google might treat it as a separate site? If it is currently on a subdomain, then it's a little trickier to make that case. I would personally be arguing for the integration and for making that move.

If it's treated as part of the site, a subdomain is equivalent to a subfolder

But unfortunately, but somewhat predictably, I couldn't tie John down to any particular way of telling if this is the case. If your content is currently on a subdomain, there isn't really any way of telling if Google is treating it differently, which is a shame, but it's somewhat predictable. But at least we understand each other now, and I think we've kind of got to the root of the confusion. These case studies are real. This is a real thing. Certainly in certain circumstances moving from the subdomain to the subfolder can improve performance.

3. Noindex's impact on nofollow

The third thing that I want to talk about is a little bit more geeked out and technical, and also, in some sense, it leads to some bigger picture lessons and thinking. A little while ago John kind of caught us out by talking about how if you have a page that you no index and keep it that way for a long time, that Google will eventually treat that equivalently to a no index, no follow.

In the long-run, a noindex page's links effectively become nofollow

In other words, the links off that page, even if you've got it as a no index, follow, the links off that page will be effectively no followed. We found that a little bit confusing and surprising. I mean I certainly felt like I had assumed it didn't work that way simply because they have the no index, follow directive, and the fact that that's a thing seems to suggest that it ought to work that way.

It's been this way for a long time

It wasn't really so much about the specifics of this, but more the like: How did we not know this? How did this come about and so forth? John talked about how, firstly, it has been this way for a long time. I think he was making the point none of you all noticed, so how big a deal can this really be? I put it back to him that this is kind of a subtle thing and very hard to test, very hard to extract out the different confounding factors that might be going on.

I'm not surprised that, as an industry, we missed it. But the point being it's been this way for a long time, and Google's view and certainly John's view was that this hadn't been hidden from us so much as the people who knew this hadn't realized that they needed to tell anyone. The actual engineers working on the search algorithm, they had a curse of knowledge.

The curse of knowledge: engineers didn't realize webmasters had the wrong idea

They knew it worked this way, and they had never realized that webmasters didn't know that or thought any differently. This was one of the things that I was kind of trying to push to John a little more was kind of saying, "More of this, please. Give us more access to the engineers. Give us more insight into their way of thinking. Get them to answer more questions, because then out of that we'll spot the stuff that we can be like, 'Oh, hey, that thing there, that was something I didn't know.' Then we can drill deeper into that."

That led us into a little bit of a conversation about how John operates when he doesn't know the answer, and so there were some bits and pieces that were new to me at least about how this works. John said he himself is generally not attending search quality meetings. The way he works is largely off his knowledge and knowledge base type of content, but he has access to engineers.

They're not dedicated to the webmaster relations operation. He's just going around the organization, finding individual Google engineers to answer these questions. It was somewhat interesting to me at least to find that out. I think hopefully, over time, we can generally push and say, "Let's look for those engineers. John, bring them to the front whenever they want to be visible, because they're able to answer these kinds of questions that might just be that curse of knowledge that they knew this all along and we as marketers hadn't figured out this was how things worked."

That was my quick run-through of some of the things that I learned when I interviewed John. We'll link over to more resources and transcripts and so forth. But it's been a blast. Take care.

• Further reading: Interviewing Google’s John Mueller at SearchLove: domain authority metrics, sub-domains vs. sub-folders and more

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Virginia Approves an Offshore Wind Project

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

• Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites
• Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever
• The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.”
- Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
- Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

• Technical basics
• Excellent usability
• On-site optimization
• Relevant content publication
• Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

• Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want
• These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components
• Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

• Sponsorships
• Event participation and hosting
• Online news
• Blogs
• Business associations
• B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.”
- Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

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