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SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

seomoz.org

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Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#11

Post by DannyDover »

patio11 wrote: post #4
mdolon wrote: post #2

Out of curiosity.. is anyone here a SEOmoz Pro member and is it worth the money?

I am. I think your perception of value is going to be heavily influenced by your level of SEO expertise and what your SEO workflow looks like. Aaron Wall has a great pyramid for expertise in an arbitrary market -- the beginners always outnumber the intermediates who outnumber... SEOMoz Pro is targeted at, if I don't miss my guess, high beginning/low intermediate. If you can't look at the SERP for [bingo cards] and sa…

Disclaimer: I work at SEOmoz

"If there is ONE thing I wish everyone at HN understood in their bones about SEO, it is that the ROI on it is just freaking amazing."

I couldn't agree more. I am frustrated and humbled to see so many intelligent people in this community that I respect be so utterly against SEO. The worst part for me is seeing so many entrepreneurs simply disregard it as an option.

I don't care if you use SEOmoz's products or our competitors, SEO is a legitimate marketing tool and I truly believe it can help everyone here build better businesses.

Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#12

Post by qeorge »

mdolon wrote: post #2

Out of curiosity.. is anyone here a SEOmoz Pro member and is it worth the money?

I am. Whether its worth the money depends on whether or not you're doing a lot of SEO work now. Their tools address pain points that are specific to the industry, so if you do professional SEO work they are great, but if you're still learning I would stick with the free options.

Here's where we've gotten value out of their tools:

- Providing a quote to a new client: Before we can give a fair quote, we need to perform a quick analysis of the client's current SEO efforts (if any), their competition, and their niche. We need this process to be both quick and accurate, and the SEOmoz tools help immensely.

- Competitive analysis: A smart, defensive SEO will fill their Y!SE profile with hundreds of garbage links, creating noise that makes it harder to find paid links and free authority links. SEOmoz's Linkscape tool will do the leg work of sifting through the pile to reveal the links which are actually helping the site rank. This alone can save hours of work (plus it has an API you can use to augment your private toolset).

- Tracking progress: They've got great tools for tracking a site's position for a given keyword in SERPs over time. Simple, but essential.

The other feature we like a lot is the Q & A. Each Pro member gets to ask 3 questions a month about anything under the sun, which will be answered in a timely manner by their staff. They do a good job of triaging these requests, to the point that their CEO will handle tougher questions. Although we don't use the Q&A service frequently, its invaluable to have a source that can answer truly obscure questions a client might ask.

Bottom line: the product is well worth the money, if you need it.

Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#13

Post by macroz »

patio11 wrote: post #4
mdolon wrote: post #2

Out of curiosity.. is anyone here a SEOmoz Pro member and is it worth the money?

I am. I think your perception of value is going to be heavily influenced by your level of SEO expertise and what your SEO workflow looks like. Aaron Wall has a great pyramid for expertise in an arbitrary market -- the beginners always outnumber the intermediates who outnumber... SEOMoz Pro is targeted at, if I don't miss my guess, high beginning/low intermediate. If you can't look at the SERP for [bingo cards] and sa…

"Don't let the Internet Marketing crowd fleece you, though." -- mind explaining that? I'd love to hear more. Thanks

Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#14

Post by bint »

macroz wrote: post #13
patio11 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am. I think your perception of value is going to be heavily influenced by your level of SEO expertise and what your SEO workflow looks like. Aaron Wall has a great pyramid for expertise in an arbitrary market -- the beginners always outnumber the intermediates who outnumber... SEOMoz Pro is targeted at, if I don't miss my guess, high beginning/low intermediate. If you can't look at the SERP for [bingo cards] and sa…

"Don't let the Internet Marketing crowd fleece you, though." -- mind explaining that? I'd love to hear more. Thanks

Ya, Patrick, I don't really understand that statement. Please can you explain?

Secondly, I remember you writing previously that you got a free membership to the site? Or do you now pay for it?

Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#15

Post by patio11 »

bint wrote: post #14
macroz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't let the Internet Marketing crowd fleece you, though." -- mind explaining that? I'd love to hear more. Thanks

Ya, Patrick, I don't really understand that statement. Please can you explain? Secondly, I remember you writing previously that you got a free membership to the site? Or do you now pay for it?

I'm a moderator at SEOBook, which is not SEOMoz.

The aside about Internet Marketing -- if you ever look up the terms Internet Marketing or Make Money Online you'll find a wealth of squeeze pages with long copy attempting to convince you that $79.95 or $500 is all you need to make millions on Google. These places are little better than scams targeting the desperate and ignorant. So when I give advice like "Hey, don't sweat the small stuff, speculative spending on SEO is smart even if it doesn't immediately result in sales this time" I wanted to add a disclaimer "But don't get suckered, because exactly those words get repeated by people looking for suckers".

Re: SEOmoz: My Startup Experience

#16

Post by trickjarrett »

mdolon wrote: post #2

Out of curiosity.. is anyone here a SEOmoz Pro member and is it worth the money?

I worked for an SEO firm prior to my current job, and as such we had access to the pro tools. I do not have a private pro membership, though if someone wishes to bless me with one I certainly can use it.

If you are determined to improve your site's ranking, the pro membership tools are more than worth it IMHO. They provide some solid analysis, and LinkScape is amazing also as a reference. The danger is that this sort of analysis can lead to navel gazing and obsessively reloading the tools.

SEO rankings are like tracking your weight, if you do it everyday the fluctuations can drive you mad.

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